Real voices from front line

Gregory Burke's "unauthorised biography" of the Highlands' oldest regiment marks the Fringe debut of the recently formed National Theatre of Scotland, and it's a superlative play.

Staged at Edinburgh's drill hall, John Tiffany's production is brimfull of theatricality, energy and style, and with its cast of 10, pipe music and huge video projections, it's almost a mini-Tattoo. But there's no flag-waving here, just a deeply humane examination of the culture of soldiering.

The setting alternates between the pub where a writer (Burke, one presumes) interviews squaddies recently returned from Iraq, and the front line itself.

The gallows humour, extremely foul language and bald statements about the morality of what they do - Kosovo was "Club 18-30 with guns", while Iraq "is Nae soldiering. It's bullying" - all ring true.

It's a brilliantly realised piece, with Stephen Hoggett's movement and Davey Anderson's music adding an operatic quality to a work of rare impact. It deserves a national audience.

What one hopes for Petrol Jesus Nightmare, by contrast, is that its Fringe run is the last we see of it. It's a confused apocalyptic piece about a plan by fundamentalist American Christians and Israelii Jews to destabilise the Middle East further by blowing up the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.

The cast do their best under Philip Howard's direction but the fact that Scottish writer Henry Adam was given the Traverse's main house to trot out this nonsense beggars belief.

What I Heard About Iraq is that rare thing, an impassioned and dynamic piece of verbatim theatre, using the words of Bush, Blair, Rumsfeld, Rice, serving soldiers and civilians caught in the war zone.

It's highly partial, but when the world's most powerful politicians obsfucate, directly contradict themselves and downright lie over numbers of casualties and weapons of mass destruction, it's hard not to be. The talented cast of five play multiple roles and are superbly directed by Hannah Eidinow.

Black Watch
Edinburgh University Drill Hall