It was the show that shocked a nation. The creators of the devastating drama, which transported viewers from a pub in Fife to a war zone, recall how it grew to become a global success.
Within six months of its launch in 2006, National Theater of Scotland (NTS) produced a hit that took the world by storm. Inspired by the tragic events in Camp Dogwood in Iraq, Black Watch humanely portrayed young soldiers at the front. As a pool table transformed into a tank, the audience was transported from a Scottish pub to a war zone, where nothing was more poignant than a letter from home.
Vicky Featherstone (founding artistic director): On my first day at NTS, in 2004, I bought Glasgow HeraldOn the front page there was an article that said that Tony Blair would unite the separate regiments of Scotland into Royal Regiment of Scotland. On page three was the sad story of three Black Watch soldiers who had lost their lives to an IED, along with an Iraqi translator. Between pages one and three there was a story that needed to be told. I called Gregory Burke and said, “Will you follow this story?”
Gregory Burke (writer): All the Black Watch soldiers came from Fife and Tayside and were the people I had grown up with. My voice was the voice of the soldiers. I didn't know them personally, but as soon as I walked into the room one of them said, "Oh, you know my sister." We went to school together.
VO: It was built on a Scottish tradition. We were thinking about the performances The Ship of Bill Bryden and The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil by John McGrath. We cried, we laughed, there was music, songs, and the magic of surprise.
John Tiffany (director): I said to Greg, “Don’t write a play – we’re going to revive a great Scottish play.” But I had no idea how to do it. It became very clear after a few weeks of rehearsals.
UK: It took time to find people of the right age, who had been in Iraq, unconditioned by institutions, and capable of providing material to build a show.
VO: One night John called me. He was with Steven Hoggett [the movement director] in his apartment. He said, “We still don’t know what it is.” We went and had some red wine, and I said, “You have to find out what it is. It’s very important.” The wine fixed it.
Brian Ferguson (actor): My character, Cammy, was based on a guy who came and talked to us for an hour. That changed everything because now you had a story that you wanted to do justice to.
JT: The boys we met were generous, gentle, and intelligent. All my assumptions about their motives for becoming soldiers were shattered, and I realized that this was what I had to do for the public.
UK: It was labeled verbatim theater, but I used the author's freedom to embellish and dramatize. The canvas was bigger than their history. It was about the history of the Scottish military and the place of the Black Watch in the British state.
Emun Elliott (actor): It was very theatrical, but the material was devastating. John grounded us in reality, which allowed us to go into abstract areas, like mimicking getting the mail from home or the fashion show at the end.
Laura Hopkins (designer): The pool table allowed us to transition from the pub to other scenes. At one point we were trying to build a tank on it, but nothing was working. When we thought about the idea of soldiers coming out of the table, we thought, “Yeah, that’s the way to go.”
AND IS: We had to look like soldiers, not like actors playing soldiers. Steven would take us through three-hour drills. We were in the best shape of our lives.
JT: We learned to march from a Black Watch sergeant. It was brutal. Then he took us outside and made us march in the parking lot. Our hearts were bursting.
L.H.: It was designed for the training room in Edinburgh and we wanted it to be unclear what was real and what was our intervention.
AND IS: The day before the final rehearsal I was in the pub with Brian and we were thinking: "What have we signed up for? It's going to be a disaster."
BF: Paul Higgins was there and said, “I think we have something special.” There wasn’t a unified feeling.
UK: We hadn't even gotten to the end of the rehearsal. But in the first preview everything went wonderfully. When the knife rose through the table, there was a silent gasp. John and I looked at each other and thought, "We've got something here."
JT: The audience reacted in an extraordinary way. They stood up.
VO: They had a rehearsal with improvised costumes and the performance was perfect. It was one of the most wonderful theatrical moments of my life.
JT: It was only 270 seats, but everyone claims to have seen it. Sean Connery was definitely one. King Charles wanted to come, but security wouldn't let him.
AND IS: The older actors would say, “Enjoy it, because a reaction like that won't happen again.” We would laugh. But 20 years later, I realized they were right.
VO: The producers said: "We want him! Can he come to us?" Black Watch, which was not intended for touring, went on tour for seven years.
JT: In Glenrothes, the families of the boys who had died came. Emun didn't look like the boy he played with, but his mother thanked me for giving him two hours.
AND IS: They had lost their son tragically and were broken. The father gave me a key with a picture of his son in civilian clothes and in uniform. It was tragic and beautiful at the same time.
UK: In New York, someone told me that Lou Reed and Rupert Murdoch were on the same night. They respect the military and it was hard to criticize Iraq, but the show was very well received.
VO: Did the SNP government use us as a tool of soft power? Yes, but I wasn't cynical. We were a national theatre and we were asking hard questions about what it means to be Scottish. Black Watch was a great gift.
AND IS: It opened a lot of doors for me. It was a hit and everyone wanted to meet the actors. I got American management and an agent. Even today, people mention how much they enjoyed it. Black Watch.
BF: Years later, during an audition at the National Theatre in London, the director said: "Every actor who has been in Black Watch "He seems so alive and confident with the text."
Jackie Wylie (current artistic director): Black Watch inspired a generation of talent. Jack Lowden, the second Cammy, clearly said that his career began with Black Watch – was 20 years old. He put the Scottish scene on the global map and defined the company.
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