Stovepipe

Adam Brace's thriller could almost be a sequel to 'Black Watch', in that it deals with part two of the invasion (the rebuild) and the lives of the soldiers who return to Iraq as private guns for $600-a-day. In Michael Longhurst's intense and well-martialled promenade production, staged in the basement beneath Morrisons in Shepherd's Bush, you file through Arabic-graffitied corridors before being ushered into the sinisterly bright environs of a Rebuild Iraq Conference. When sirens erupt, you're sent into a state of paranoid alert – the ideally receptive mood for a production which escorts you from the bars of Jordan to the anarchy of Iraq. Brace's play is a buddy-story about three soliders in desperate need of redemption. The core of macho tenderness is undercut by sharp, conflict-laden dialogue, which constantly redraws the borders of your assumptions. But, as you're moved through the (superbly designed) scenes of Alan's memory with military efficiency, you may find yourself more gripped by the unsettling tension than moved by the tragedy.