Fringe choices

Published on 15/07/2006 02:11

EVERYONE LOVES LISTS. OR RATHER, everyone loves arguing about all the things that should have been in them. And so it may be with this, our months-in-the-making list of the 60 things you must see in Edinburgh next month. With thousands of shows to choose from, it was tough. Yet flawed as such a list must inevitably be, these 60 - in no particular order - are all solid recommendations by our unrivalled team of critics.

To narrow things down, we've leaned towards things that haven't been here before, basing our choices either on people's track records or the presence of an unusual, fresh idea. And there are a few that we're just personally very excited about.

The real must-sees, of course, may turn out to be people that hardly anyone, even critics, have heard of yet - like Laura Solon last year, or Will Adamsdale the year before. We'll be telling you about them in The Scotsman's daily festival supplement, which starts on 5 August.

Comedy

The Goodies Still Rule OK!

Assembly Rooms, 4-27 August

PART of a wave of 1970s nostalgia sweeping this year's Fringe (Pam Ayres is selling very well, we are told), this greatest hits show by two thirds of the Goodies will bring back fond memories for audiences of a certain age, even if the promise of "all new footage" of Bill Oddie surely can't live up to the real thing. It may also show a younger generation how influential the Goodies were - the Mighty Boosh, for example, are basically Goodies: the Next Generation. AE

Tel: [phone], www.assemblyrooms.com

Books

Simon Schama

Charlotte Square, 24 August

FEW historians have won as much critical respect and popular acclaim as Simon Schama, who will give Book Festival audiences an exclusive preview of his new television series, starting in late September, which looks at history through masterpieces of visual art. SM

Tel: [phone], www.edbookfest.co.uk

Physical Theatre

Various shows

Aurora Nova, 5-28 August

IF you want to experience the cosmopolitan spirit of the Fringe, it is alive and well and living at Aurora Nova. With dance from Ireland, Germany and Norway, physical theatre from Russia, England and the Czech Republic, hip-hop from Germany and acrobatic dance from Italy, you'll find a world of culture all under one roof. Most shows are a safe bet. KA

Tel: [phone], www.auroranova.org

Comedy

Paul Provenza: Talk of the Fest

Underbelly, 3-27 August

THE man who brought us The Aristocrats, Provenza is a cool actor, a smart, creative director, a formidable stand-up comic and now, quite possibly, Edinburgh's sexiest and most subversive chat show host. With the best comics doing their most dangerous "dream" sets, and sparring with Provenza himself, this is a comedy must. KC

Tel: [phone], www.underbelly.co.uk

Film

Art School Confidential

Cineworld, 16-17 August

THE latest collaboration between Ghost World creator Daniel Clowes and Crumb director Terry Zwigoff is a scabrous attack on the art world starring John Malkovich and Jim Broadbent. It's a comedy, but a feel-bad one, dripping with self-loathing and bitterness. Nice. AH

Tel: [phone], www.edfilmfest.org.uk

Music

Muse

Meadowbank Stadium, 24 August

IF any band can overcome the depressing environment of Meadowbank Stadium, it's astral prog freak-out merchants Muse, whose gargantuan guitars, operatic vocals and Rachmaninov riffs could power the whole of Edinburgh for the entire Fringe. Expect a stage show of War Of The Worlds proportions. FS

Tel: [phone], www.tonthefringe.com

Visual Art

Ron Mueck

Royal Scottish Academy, 5 August until 1 October

RON Mueck takes his cue from Jonathan Swift. His gigantic figures turn us into Lilliputians confronted with Gulliver. Like Swift, though, he uses this unexpected perspective to make us see ourselves afresh. It's like looking into one of those magnifying shaving mirrors, not a pretty sight, but fascinating all the same. DM

Tel: [phone], www.natgalscot.ac.uk

Theatre

Troilus and Cressida

King's Theatre, 14-26 August

IF there's one relationship that has been the hallmark of Brian McMaster's 15-year reign as director of the Edinburgh International Festival, it's been his powerful connection with the great German director Peter Stein, whose work had never been seen in Edinburgh until McMaster brought his mighty Julius Caesar to Ingliston in 1993. Since then, Stein's contributions to the Festival have ranged from his nine-hour Oresteia at Murrayfield Ice Rink in 1994, and his fabulous Cherry Orchard at the Festival Theatre in 1997, to last year's mind-blowingly powerful King's Theatre production of the new David Harrower play Blackbird; and now he turns his attention to one of the most complex and disturbing plays in the whole Shakespeare repertoire, the bitterly ironic tragi-comedy of Troilus and Cressida.

In Stein's first-ever English-language Shakespeare production, the love-struck Troilus will be played by the young Edinburgh-born actor Henry Pettigrew, and the sleazy old matchmaker Pandarus by Paul Jesson, a much-admired Willy Loman in the Royal Lyceum's smash-hit 2004 production of Death Of A Salesman; and after its Edinburgh run, the show will transfer to Stratford-upon-Avon, as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company's historic year-long Complete Works festival, featuring every one of Shakespeare's 38 plays. JM

Tel: [phone], www.eif.co.uk

Comedy

Phil Nichol

The Stand, 2-27 August

WATCHING this stand-up on stage feels, in the most wonderful way possible, how the inhabitants of Java felt when Krakatoa erupted; his is body, heart and soul humour. Nichol can also be seen in Talk Radio and Sam Shepherd's black-but-funny True West, at the Assembly Rooms. This will be his year. KC

Tel: [phone], www.thestand.co.uk

Music

Matisyahu

Liquid Room, 22 August

A DEVOUT Hasidic Jewish rapper performing reggae rock songs might sound like the latest piece of character comedy from Rich Hall, but Matisyahu (Hebrew for Matthew) is the genuine article. This 26-year-old New Yorker is currently the top-selling reggae artist in the States and now he's over here to win us over. FS

Tel: [phone], www.tonthefringe.com

Theatre

Tossers

E4 UdderBELLY, 3-28 August

THERE is no tosser quite as likeable as Steve Rawlings, who has got together a whole group of gorgeous young tossers in a show which is - and we kid you not - a juggling, hip-hop, acrobatic drama with comedy twists. Unique. And a total blast. KC

Tel: [phone], www.underbelly.co.uk

Books

Joseph E Stiglitz

Charlotte Square, 27 August

A former vice-president of the World Bank, Stiglitz is the American expert on globalisation with a human face, and a Nobel Prize winner for economics. He appears at the Book Festival to deliver a lecture called Nations Unlimited. DR

Tel: [phone], www.edbookfest.co.uk

Theatre

Talk Radio

E4 UdderBELLY, 3-28 August

AS demonstrated by Guy Masterson's Twelve Angry Men (2003) and The Odd Couple (2005), casting comedians in serious theatre based on old plays/movies can work. This year, Stewart Lee, fresh from Jerry Springer: The Opera, produces Eric Bogosian's 1988 satire about a controversial talk-show host, starring a constellation of top stand-ups, including Stephen K Amos, Phil Nichol and Tony Law. RC

Tel: [phone], www.underbelly.co.uk

Comedy

Tony Robinson's Cunning Night Out

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 17-21 August

IT'S impossible to imagine British TV without Tony Robinson. From Baldrick in Blackadder to Time Team and The Worst Jobs in History, the little fella's a hardy perennial in a world full of pretenders. This should be a treat, and there's even going to be a singalong bit. RC

Tel: [phone], www.gildedballoon.co.uk

Books

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

Charlotte Square, 13-14 August

THIS is the first Book Festival visit for a writer widely regarded as one of the best in Africa, who was a political prisoner in his native Kenya and now lives in self-imposed exile. Wa Thiong'o appears at Amnesty's Imprisoned Writers Series on 13 August and a Meet The Author session the following day, to launch his new novel, Wizard of the Crow. DR

Tel: [phone], www.edbookfest.co.uk

Film

Sean Connery Bafta Interview

Cineworld, 25 August

IT'S the Film Festival's 60th anniversary and patron Sir Sean Connery will do a one-off interview. The event includes a screening of The Bowler and the Bunnet, which Connery directed. How will he react if asked that "tough" question: why did he make The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen? AH

Tel: [phone], www.edfilmfest.org.uk

Comedy

Paul Merton's Silent Clowns

Assembly Rooms, 8-20 August

AS his Silent Clowns series on BBC4 attests, Paul Merton loves old-school slapstick. In this morning show, he introduces clips of some of his favourites, including Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, and treats us to a screening of Laurel and Hardy's Big Business. Pianist Neil Brand will provide accompaniment. Merton's Impro Chums also return this year, at the Pleasance. RC

Tel: [phone], www.assemblyrooms.com

Theatre

Platform

Royal Lyceum Theatre, 30 August-2 September

A COLLISION of notorious talents, as the Catalunyan director Calixto Bieito adapts and directs the novel by Michel Houellebecq. A sexually explicit meditation on the economics of tourism, Platform includes a harsh critique of Islam, and led to charges of incitement to racial hatred. AB

Tel: [phone], www.eif.co.uk

Theatre

Levelland

Assembly Rooms, 4-29 August

US comedian Rich Hall makes his debut as a playwright with a thriller set in a near-future US dystopia, where petrol costs $10 a gallon. Hall is a Texan talk-show host who's visited by a "messiah" who believes he can save America. AB

Tel: [phone], www.assemblyrooms.com

Comedy

Mark Watson's Seemingly Impossible 36 Hour Circuit of the World

Pleasance Dome, 14-15 August

WATSON's marathon shows are exhilarating, and at 36 hours, this promises to be his longest yet. If past form holds good, virtually every major comic in Edinburgh will turn up and chip in. Watson already has two other daily shows at the Pleasance, one at 7:30pm, one at 9:45pm. He will also be writing a novel throughout the month, with help from his audiences. CW

Tel: [phone], www.pleasance.co.uk

Books

Rory Stewart

Charlotte Square, 13 August

RORY Stewart's first book, The Places in Between, was an award-winning account of his 600-mile trek across Afghanistan's mountains in January 2002. The first westerner known to have walked the snowy passes at that time of year, Stewart made the journey without a map, in case anyone thought he was a spy. His new book, Occupational Hazards, is about his time running two Iraqi provinces in 2004, and is about the most lucid analysis possible of what's going wrong in that country. DR

Tel: [phone], www.edbookfest.co.uk

Opera

Die Zauberflte

Edinburgh Festival Theatre, 31 August and 2 September

THE great Claudio Abbado joins forces with his stage director son, Daniele, for Mozart's The Magic Flute. Abbado's record at the Edinburgh Festival is legendary. Remember what he did with Wagner's Parsifal a few festivals ago? This cast includes Julia Kleiter and Eric Cutler as the young heroes, Pamina and Tamino. The Arnold Schoenberg Choir and the Tolzer Knabenchor are there too. KW

Tel: [phone], www.eif.co.uk

Books

Seamus Heaney

Charlotte Square, 24-25 August

EVEN in a Book Festival that boasts three Nobel laureates, it's hard to resist the Celtic charms of Seamus Heaney. Here he will explore some Scottish connections, and the next day will read from his new volume of poetry, District and Circle. SM

Tel: [phone], www.edbookfest.co.uk

Theatre

Tone Clusters

Traverse, 2-27 August

OF ALL the cutting-edge theatre to emerge from Glasgow's Arches in recent years, none has been more praised than Neil Doherty's 2003 success Tone Clusters, now revived. Carrying echoes of US tragedies from Columbine to the mysterious murder of little JonBenet Ramsey, this adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates's novel tells the story of the Gulicks, a couple who find the body of a murdered teenage girl in their basement.The show appears as part of a strong Arches presence this year, including a revival of 2005's Samuel Beckett double bill, The Basement Tapes (Rockaby and Krapp's Last Tape), and artist-in-residence Al Seed's short movement show The Factory. JM

Tel: [phone], www.traverse.co.uk

Film

Clerks II/Reel Life: Kevin Smith

Cineworld, 18 (introduced by Smith) and 20 August, and Reel Life on 19 August,

KEVIN Smith's long-awaited follow-up to Clerks gets its British premiere at the Film Festival, so expect plenty of poetic profanity and at least one killer debate on the merits of Star Wars over Lord of the Rings. Smith is also a great raconteur so don't miss his Reel Life talk. AH

Tel: [phone], www.edfilmfest.org.uk

Music

Scritti Politti

Liquid Room, 7 August

ENIGMATIC Scritti Politti main man Green Gartside has returned after another lengthy hiatus with new album White Bread Black Beer, which picks up where he left off seven years ago - blending those idiosyncratic, ethereal vocals into immaculately produced skewed pop songs. Hopefully there will be room for 1980s hits The Sweetest Girl and Wood Beez. FS

Tel: [phone], www.tonthefringe.com

Visual Art

Robert Mapplethorpe

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 29 July until 5 November

ROBERT Mapplethorpe photographs many things, but his reference point is always the human figure and his pictures are notorious for what he does with it. DM

Tel: [phone], or visit www.natgalscot.ac.uk

Theatre

Allegiance

Assembly Rooms, 7-13 August

ON THE Fringe for one week only, comic institution Mel Smith stars in the premiere run of Mary Kelly's intriguing play about the unlikely friendship between British premier Winston Churchill and Sinn Fein leader Michael Collins. AE

Tel: [phone], or visit www.assemblyrooms.com

Books

Ismail Kadare

Charlotte Square, 19 August

LAST year, the judges of the first Man Booker International Prize rated this Albanian writer above John Updike, Saul Bellow, Nadine Gordimer and Margaret Atwood as the best writer in the world. This is his first Book Festival appearance. DR

Tel: [phone], or visit www.edbookfest.co.uk

Opera

Elektra

Usher Hall, 13 August

THE International Festival opens with a belter - a concert performance of Strauss's expressionistic tour de force Elektra, with New Orleans soprano Jeanne-Michele Charbonnet (right) in one of 20th-century opera's most demanding roles. This performance also marks the return of Edward Gardner as conductor, who directed last year's The Death of Klinghoffer, and who has since been snapped up by English National Opera, much to the chagrin of Scottish Opera. KW

Tel: [phone], www.eif.co.uk

Theatre

Midnight Cowboy

Assembly Rooms, 4-28 August

TICKETS for this have been selling fast, helped by rumours that a Hollywood name would be cast in the lead role. This week's casting of Charles Aitken as Joe and Con O'Neill as Ratso promises great perform-ances, if not the expected glamour. AE

Tel: [phone], or visit www.assemblyrooms.com

Film

An Inconvenient Truth

Cineworld, 27 August

THE inconvenient truth is that we have just ten years to avert an irreversible ecological catastrophe. That's the message of former US vice president Al Gore's sobering film on the ticking time bomb that is global warming. Presenting the facts as they stand, this documentary-cum-lecture is essential viewing in every way imaginable. AH

Tel: [phone], www.edfilmfest.org.uk

Theatre

Marlon Brando's Corset

Pleasance Grand, 3-28 August

NO MOMENT in Ricky Gervais' Extras was more excruciatingly funny than Les Dennis playing "himself" as a vain, hopelessly deluded has-been. His appearance in this satire on celebrity by Guy Jones and Ed Curtis is being sold on the promise of more of the same. It looks a little like stunt casting, but it could be pretty interesting. AE

Tel: [phone], or visit www.pleasance.co.uk

Comedy

Jim Henson's Puppet Improv - Adults Only

Jim Henson's Puppet Improv - For Kids

Assembly Hall, 4-20 August

THE people who brought you the Muppets are putting on two shows - one for kids at 3pm, and one for adults only at 8:40pm. The cast includes Bill Barretta, best-known for Muppet folk including Rolf the Dog and The Swedish Chef. RC

Tel: [phone], or visit www.assemblyrooms.com

Theatre

Chanbara

Pleasance Grand, 2-28 August

CALL me a big kid, but this just looks great. Chanbara are the team who created the thrilling fight sequences in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill. For this new show, they have teamed up with the hugely popular Japanese drumming group Yamato. Swords. Drumming. What's not to like? AE

Tel: [phone], or visit www.pleasance.co.uk

Music

Three Mo' Tenors

Assembly @ St George's West, 4-27 August

THERE are actually six tenors in the revolving cast of this American touring show, a showcase for the talents of African-American singers who take on opera, jazz, gospel, blues and Broadway showtunes. Now making their Edinburgh debut, the tenors have bagged a prime early evening slot in one of the Fringe's biggest venues, and could be a big hit. AE

Tel: [phone], or visit www.assemblyrooms.com

Comedy

Doug Stanhope

Tron, 6-10 August; George Square Theatre, 11-27 August

ONE of very few really convincing successors to Bill Hicks's fearless, no compromise stand-up comedy, Doug Stanhope is the comic other comics admire - even if he goes way further than they would dare to. This is his first full Fringe run. Expect fireworks. AE

Tel: [phone] (Tron), 0131-662 8740 (GST)

Film

Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait

Cineworld, 19 and 22 August

AN INGENIOUS film from Turner Prize-winning video artist Douglas Gordon, this uses 17 cameras to track Real Madrid's French superstar over the course of a single league game. No head-butts, just a lot of brilliant football. AH

Tel: [phone], www.edfilmfest.org.uk

Theatre

One Man Star Wars Trilogy

Reid Concert Hall, 3-28 August

THIS is hardly the first Fringe show inspired by Star Wars, but it comes highly recommended. Canadian actor Charles Ross plays all the characters, flies the spaceships, and condenses the plot of all three films into 60 minutes. He even sings the music. AE

Tel: [phone], or visit www.underbelly.co.uk

Comedy

This is So Not About the Simpsons (American Voyeurs)

Assembly Rooms, 4-28 August

IN ONE snappy title, Harry Shearer's made himself a get-out clause to wave at people who will only come to his show because they love The Simpsons, while making sure that Simpsons fans remember he's in The Simpsons so will actually come. Anyway, like The Simpsons, this is a satire on American culture, performed by Shearer and his wife Judith Owen. AE

Tel: [phone], www.assemblyrooms.com

Music

Berlin Philharmonika

Usher Hall, 31 August

IT'S probably the hottest ticket of the Festival - a rare appearance in Scotland by that Rolls Royce of orchestras, the Berlin Philharmonic, with its British maestro Simon Rattle. Rattle lives for Mahler, so it's not surprising to find one of the symphonies - the gorgeously Alpine Fourth - in the programme. But there's a touch of Scotland, too, with Aberdeen soprano Lisa Milne as soloist. Szymanowski's Violin Concerto is also featured, with Franz Peter Zimmermann as featured soloist. KW

Tel: [phone], www.eif.co.uk

Books

Kate Atkinson

Charlotte Square, 12 August

ON the first day of the Book Festival, award-winning Kate Atkinson (inset) launches One Good Turn, a sparky page-turner set in Edinburgh at festival time. See the lines of fact and fiction blur. SM

Tel: [phone], www.edbookfest.co.uk

Theatre

Realism

Royal Lyceum Theatre, 14-19 August

ANTHONY Neilson has established himself as one of the boldest and most uncompromising of the new generation of in-your-face British playwrights; and in the last two years - with his huge EIF hit The Wonderful World Of Dissocia, and last year's production of the controversial opera The Death Of Klinghoffer - he has emerged as a key member of the small group of artists from whom Festival director Brian McMaster regularly commissions new work. Now, for the first co-production between the Edinburgh International Festival and the new National Theatre Of Scotland, Neilson is writing and directing Realism, based on the thesis that the aim of life is not to change the world, but to see it rightly. His father, Sandy Neilson, is among the cast. JM

Tel: [phone], www.eif.co.uk

Opera

The Lindbergh Flight/The Seven Deadly Sins

Edinburgh Festival Theatre, 14-16 August

GREAT music by Kurt Weill, and a production by Francois Girard, whose Canadian Opera production of Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex, with its hill of writhing bodies, was a sensation at the 2002 Festival. The Lindbergh Flight celebrates Charles Lindbergh's historic first solo Atlantic flight. It's paired in this performance by Opera National de Lyon with Weill's The Seven Deadly Sins, the tale of sisters caught up in a decadent city. KW

Tel: [phone], www.eif.co.uk

Dance

Grupo de Rua de Niteri - H2

Playhouse, 22-23 August, 8pm

BRAZILIAN choreographer Bruno Beltrao brings his unique blend of hip-hop and contemporary dance to Edinburgh. Scouring his native land for 12 of the hottest streetdancers, Beltrao explores hip-hop's origins and takes it to a higher level. KA

Tel: [phone], www.eif.co.uk

Film

Reel Life: Steven Soderbergh

Cineworld, 19 August

FROM experimental indie films to slick blockbusters to Oscar-winning dramas, director Steven Soderbergh has cracked Hollywood and made the system work for him. Taking time out of his hectic schedule - finishing the new George Clooney film The Good German; prepping Ocean's 13 and Che Guevara biopic Guerrilla - he's in Edinburgh to discuss his career so far. AH

Tel: [phone], www.edfilmfest.org.uk

Music

The Hammerklavier Sonata

Usher Hall, 1 September

AS well as appearing this year with the Minnesota Orchestra, Welsh pianist Llyr Williams takes to the Usher Hall stage solo to perform that Everest of the Beethoven piano canon, the hefty Hammerklavier sonata. Expect fireworks. KW

Tel: [phone], www.eif.co.uk

Music

Beethoven Symphonies

Usher Hall, 15-30 August and 1 September

EVERYTHING Sir Charles Mackerras touches - even in his 80s - has you clinging to the edge of the seat. This colossal cycle of the Beethoven symphonies promises to be as memorable as anything he's given us before. The Scottish Chamber Orchestra is the vehicle for the early evening series, except for the final Ninth Symphony, for which Mackerras has heavier artillery, in the form of the Philharmonia Orchestra and Edinburgh Festival Chorus. KW

Tel: [phone], www.eif.co.uk

Music

Minnesota Orchestra

Usher Hall, 25 August

EVER wondered what became of Osmo Vanska after he left his post here as principal conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra? America called, and for the first time since leaving Scotland, he's back with his new charges - the Minnesota Orchestra - in a programme of Samuel Barber, Beethoven (the third Piano Concerto with Llyr Williams) and Stravinsky's Petrushka. The word is, he and his new band get on like a house on fire. We shall hear. KW

Tel: [phone], www.eif.co.uk

Film

Colour Me Kubrick

Cameo, 19 August; Cineworld, 21 August

BASED on a bizarre true story, this hilarious examination of the cult of celebrity stars John Malkovich as Alan Conway, a low-level conman who, in the early 1990s, successfully impersonated Stanley Kubrick around London - despite the fact he looked nothing like him. AH

Tel: [phone], www.edfilmfest.org.uk

Music

Steven Osborne 1

Steven Osborne 2

Queen's Hall, 14 & 23 August

TOP Scots pianist Steven Osborne appears not once, but twice, at the Queen's Hall with a heady mix of Rachmaninov and Debussy. Both morning concerts are linked - the first covers Debussy's 1st book of Preludes and Rachmaninov's Op.23 Preludes; the second addresses Book 2 and the Op,32 set, respectively, by the same composers. KW

Tel: [phone], www.eif.co.uk

Dance

Nederlands Dans Theater

Playhouse, 31 August until 2 September

A WELCOME return from one of the world's finest modern dance companies. This time around they're showcasing four works by choreographic duo, and real-life couple, Paul Lightfoot and Sol Leon. Expect your emotions to be pulled in several different directions. KA

Tel: [phone], www.eif.co.uk

Theatre

Black Watch

University of Edinburgh Drill Hall, 1-27 August

GREGORY Burke, the author of Fringe smash hits Gagarin Way and The Straits, delivers an "unauthorised biography" of the Scottish regiment, based on interviews with soldiers who served in Iraq. SM

Tel: [phone], www.traverse.co.uk

Dance

Tapeire

Baby Belly, 3-27 August

HE'S got the fastest feet in the world - and that's official. Guinness World Record holder James Devine strips back the flashy world of Irish dance to its origins. Throw in unfeasibly fast tap dancing, a multi-platinum selling Cape Breton fiddler and a suite of percussion instruments for the most rhythmic show of the Fringe. KA

Tel: [phone], www.underbelly.co.uk

Film

The Host

Cameo, 16 August; Cineworld, 18 August

THE Film Festival has been at the head of the recent explosion in South Korean cinema and The Host, like Oldboy before it, could be a cult hit. A big budget monster film about a mutant tadpole that terrorises Seoul, it sounds daft, but director Bong Joon-ho made art-house hit Memories of Murder, so expect subversive thrills. AH

Tel: [phone], www.edfilmfest.org.uk

Theatre

Petrol Jesus Nightmare No.5

Traverse, 2-27 August

IF war and religion are the hottest topics in this year's Fringe line-up, no play seems likely to bring them together with more explosive force than Henry Adam's Petrol Jesus Nightmare No. 5, one of the two new Traverse productions at this year's Festival. Adam has already established himself as a favourite among the current generation of Scottish playwrights, above all with his frighteningly prescient 2003 Festival hit The People Next Door, about the impact of the war on terror in multicultural Britain.

Now, as the Israel-Palestine crisis grows ever more intense, he has produced a fierce new tragi-comedy, subtitled In The Time Of The Messiah, in which two Israeli soldiers defending a ransacked building in the occupied territories are suddenly joined by two American visitors - a rabbi's widow and a gum-chewing Texan - and a harassed army minder. Traverse boss Philip Howard directs a great Scottish cast including James Cunningham, Lewis Howden, and rising star Aleksandr Mikic. JM

Tel: [phone], www.traverse.co.uk

Ten safe choices

1. La Clique

Spiegel Garden, 5-28 August

The jaw-dropping burlesque show, back by popular demand.

2. Bill Bailey

EICC, 12-19 August

A national treasure. His punk band, Beergut 100, is at the Gilded Balloon too.

3. Adam Hills

Assembly Rooms, 4-28 August

The nicest comic on the Fringe.

4. Jump

Assembly Hall, 4-28 August

Spectacular "martial arts comedy" from Korea.

5. Demetri Martin

UdderBelly, 13-28 August

Cleverest comic on the Fringe.

6. Soweto Gospel Choir

Queen's Hall, 7-28 August

The stars of our first Scotsman Fringe Awards return.

7. Immortal - The Nofit State Circus

Out of the Blue , Tramworks, 6-27 August

Unforgettable moments created by a freakishly talented cast.

8. Topping and Butch

Underbelly, 3-24 August

Rude, satirical and shameless.

9. Simon Amstell

The Stand, 2-28 August

Can make you laugh with a mere twitch of his eyebrows.

10. Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen

Spiegel Garden, 7-27 August

Terrific musical cabaret.

Words by Joyce McMillan, Kenneth Walton, Duncan Macmillan, Alistair Harkness, Fiona Shepherd, Andrew Eaton, Roger Cox, Andrew Burnet, Kelly Apter, Susan Mansfield, David Robinson, Kate Copstick and Chris Wilkinson