Ross Anderson starts at top with role in acclaimed play Black Watch

Published: 19 November, 2010
by TERRY MESSENGER

A YOUNG actor is making his professional debut with a major role in a play which has won the highest accolades in British and American theatre.

Ross Anderson, from Clerkenwell, was astonished when he landed the part of Rossco in the acclaimed Black Watch by Gregory Burke. The play – about Scotland’s Black Watch regiment in Iraq – has won four Laurence Olivier Awards and was judged best foreign play by the New York Drama Circle.

Ross, 23, said: “If I could have chosen any play to be in, it would have been playing Rossco in Black Watch.      When I was offered the job I just couldn’t believe it.”

A previous Black Watch cast won Laurence Olivier Awards for best play, director, choreography and sound in 2009 – the highest prizes in West End theatre.

Ross, from Vicary Court, Mitchell Street, was recruited to the new cast in June. He has been performing the play in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Black Watch opens in London at the Barbican Theatre on November 27 and runs to January 22. Ross’s character, Rossco, is described as the most gung-ho in the play, someone “who wants to kill Iraqis”.

The actor took a year out from a course at Drama Centre London, in Back Hill, Farringdon, so he could star in his first professional role.

He has had to play the role in front of 70 real soldiers from the Black Watch at a show in Aberdeen. He said: “When we saw them sitting there, we all cr***ed ourselves and thought: this is going to be the test. 

“A lot of the soldiers said it felt like they were there again and they were just laughing at the banter. And they could pick out characters within their own regiment.

“It’s not really a political play – it’s more of a snapshot about the human side of it.   

“They’re not fighting for Queen and Country, they’re fighting for each other. One of the lines is “I fought for my mates” and that sort of sums it up.” 

After the Barbican, the play goes on tour to the United States.