Black Watch in New York

In The Daily Telegraph, playwright Gregory Burke recounts the experience of seeing his play, Black Watch, open in New York.

It had been a beautiful, unseasonably warm (if such a thing exists any more) day, and the walk afforded spectacular views of the lower Manhattan skyline. Looking across at the part of the city where the twin towers used to stand, Lorraine, my wife, said to me that it was a very weird feeling to think that what had happened over there in 2001 had led to this play being here six years later. It was a bit of a moment.

I wanted to say to her that it wasn't what happened over there that started it. No, it was the decision of the Royal Navy (quickly followed by the US Navy) to switch from coal-fired to oil-fired boilers for reasons of frequency of resupply.

That this in turn necessitated the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire into a series of easily controlled vassal states to ensure a readily available supply of cheap crude. I wanted to say that but I didn't. Like I said, we were having a moment. I didn't want to spoil it.

Plus, I think she was just distracting me before she hit me with the total extent of her spending in Bergdorf Goodman.