The Glasgow-based Suspect Culture Company has a focused agenda, clearly articulated in the programme for Mainstream. The emphasis is on collaboration and exploration. Playwright David Greig - an emerging theatrical talent of note - has worked with composer Nick Powell and director Graham Eatough to produce a fascinating piece which analyses human relationships in a totally contemporary context.
There are echoes of Bickerstaffe's superb True Lines. The atmosphere of the piece is clinical, deliberate and scathingly clear. The four actors play two characters who have engaged in a `one night stand`. They inhabit a corporate world of personnel interrogations, CVs, surveys and files. Their language is circumscribed by their professional lives. As potential lovers they are sadly inarticulate. Any level of commitment can only lead to contempt, so morning parting is inevitable.
The play has a feel of Eliot's Prufrock - "in the room, the women come and go", in this instance located in a post-modern hotel. Ian Scott's elegantly-lit design is sparse but wholly committed to the spirit of the play. We see the human specimens "sprawling on a pin": Human contact, and sexual congress, are tentative and ephemeral.
Grieg's writing is literary, without gushing. It is controlled, occasionally visceral and at times icily articulate. The play has the symmetry of a rondo. It is marvellously crafted, one scene echoing another in teasing variations. The staging, lighting, sound and movement all underpin this approach, which makes for cool but very satisfying theatre.
By Derek West 9 p.m. Ends today.
The Kevin Gildeas - Castle Inn
The career of the now London-based comic (formerly of comedy trio Mr Trellis, with Ardal O'Hanlon and Barry Murphy) has taken an interesting turn with the Kevin Gildeas, a hybrid of comedy and music that is a long way from the jolly, ho-ho-ho gaiety that often results from the mix, and is more like poetry to music, or rap. While it has elements in common with Gildea's more familiar cynical stand-up material, it brings in new strands: a poignancy and a bleak realism. Joined by Dublin singer-songwriter Doctor Miller, Gildea mines the sadness of broken relationships and other life-altering events. All the old manic, cackling energy is still there, but a new maturity is evident - this is a comedian's coming of age. It is also very funny and, in the faster rap numbers, involves impressive feats of memory. The banter between hyper Gildea and world-weary Miller is pretty funny, too. The support, dour Bolton comedy dumpling Hovis Presley, was a perfect choice to complete an evening of bitter-sweet laughter.
By Deirdre Falvey
A Red Day - Arthouse
"It's not very often in theatre that a creative process starts with the design, but that's how this show began," writes Elaine Bastible in the performance notes. What extraordinary creations those huge body-masks are, multi-dimensional Cubist figures from Picasso's paintings, realised stunningly by Bastible and the Ishka Theatre Company.
It's with design that the creative process ends too, sadly. They could have created an abstract movement work, but the problem is, they only half-create a narrative loosely starring Dora Maar and a horse. You find yourself asking: `What's going on now?', but the Cubist figures do not belong in a narrative structure and fight against it. This problem is highlighted by the other production values: the lighting is a Stygian soup, the figures frequently lunge towards the floor and out of view, and the puppets could be more delicately manipulated.
You have to hand it to Ishka, however, for daring, ambition and originality and for attempting to do the kind of mad things which are the life of a Fringe.
1.10 p.m., until tomorrow.
By Victoria White
Owen O'Neill, Deirdre O'Kane, David O'Doherty etc - Laughter Lounge
David O'Doherty, this year's winner of the So You Think You're Funny? competition in Edinburgh, is a gentle, whimsical, ingenuous comic whose style is almost old-fashioned, while his material is inventively full of fresh ideas: out-takes from his act, a spoof radio ad for bananas involving the audience, which worked brilliantly, silly songs, some of the material he says he uses for his "stand-up" at children's parties - "you know when grown-ups go to the toilet and then wash their hands - what's all that about?" Deirdre O'Kane scored with her easy, polished style and Navan's lugubrious Tommy Nicholson has improved tremendously over the past few months. Headliner Owen O'Neill, who these days more usually performs his own theatrical shows, worked over some of his old "greatest stand-up hits" ground; good material, and always entertaining, but getting a bit too familiar at this stage. The ebullient Eddie Bannon sparkled as MC.
By Deirdre Falvey
*****brilliant
****good
***more good than bad
**more bad than good
*bad
Fringe information/booking on 1850 3746438. Fringe reviews continue on Thursday.
