It is the kind of opening few festival audiences will have experienced. �You will find it slightly bizarre to find an Army officer introducing a Fringe show,� Brigadier David Allfrey acknowledged yesterday.

It is the kind of opening few festival audiences will have experienced.

"You will find it slightly bizarre to find an Army officer introducing a Fringe show," Brigadier David Allfrey acknowledged yesterday as he welcomed the audience to the latest military-inspired play to hit the Edinburgh Fringe.

Equally odd, given the on-going controversy and concern surrounding the Army, was the festival programme description of The Pipers' Trail as a show "packed with music and magic for anyone who wants to feel good about life".

There is a lot riding on it. The Army has spent a massive £270,000 - almost all its £300,000 a year marketing budget - on the play. It has more than paid off, reaching more than four million people through audiences and media coverage - although it garnered a mixed response yesterday.

A cast of actors and dancers, plus a couple of genuine soldiers playing the pipes and drums, tell the story of a fictional and slightly troubled Scottish teenager, Jamie, who journeys from Shetland to Glasgow to play in the world piping championships.

Along the way, as the brigadier points out in his welcoming speech, Jamie meets a former soldier who helps him to learn the six core Army values including courage, discipline and respect.

It is light years from the now world-acclaimed Black Watch, which premiered at the Fringe in 2006 recounting the harsh realities of the Iraq war through the eyes of that regiment's squaddies.

There was also nothing in common with the harrowing new play Deep Cut, exploring the unexplained deaths of young soldiers at the notorious army barracks - The Pipers' Trail was commissioned by the Army, for the Army.

The aim of the play, which arrived in Edinburgh at the end of a Scottish tour, is to raise awareness of the Army's role and improve communication with society.

Brigadier Allfrey said yesterday that The Pipers' Trail was not a direct reply to either Black Watch or Deep Cut, but he hopes it can help redress the balance.

He said: "Black Watch is a very compelling production, Deep Cut I imagine is also tremendous, but these focus on the negative. This is about a more philosophical approach. It's not an answer but it talks about human potential and about standards and values. There is no antidote to negative stories but I hope this will provide a wee bit of balance."

He added: "We are very busy in society and when we are very busy we don't communicate as cleverly as we might. Inevitably, when people are thinking about the Army they settle on things which are most readily available, and that will include Iraq and Afghanistan, but that is only a small part of what we do."

Views from the audience at the George Square musical theatre yesterday were mixed.

Alan Hawkins, 66, a volunteer and former Territorial Army soldier from Kilmartin, Argyll, branded the play "slick advertising".

He said: "They are painting a picture that they want gullible young people to see. They are not showing how many bodies are being brought back each week from Iraq and Afghanistan."

But teacher Jolyon Bromley, 57, on holiday from Sydney, Australia, said: "I think there's a genuine story there I see a lot of the values that they are presenting that I would be presenting in a school, about discipline, hard work and loyalty."

Impact, the educational theatre group which produced the play for the Army, also defended the project.

Group owner Mary Lacey said: "The Army with this show is not doing anything more than reaching out to the society it serves and saying we're human beings'.

"You live by values and standards, so do we. We're not that different."

The Herald's theatre critic Neil Cooper, who has seen both Black Watch and Deep Cut but not yet The Pipers' Trail, was sceptical. He said promotional information "reads more like a PR exercise", adding: "On one level I applaud any institution which is embracing the arts, but on the another level if it is being used as propaganda then I think that needs questioning."