Electric performances in a highly charged show

Diverse Attractions Lawnmarket

WARMING to the heart and intriguing for the imagination, Edinburgh Graduate Theatre Group's production of this difficult and fascinating play is simple staged but highly effective in its telling.

This is the story of Lucien and Anthony. Pals since they were children, it at first seems that their somewhat strange relationship is due to a freak strike of lightning when they were six.

As Lucien, Paul Schultz creates a controlling kind of character. In that thunderstorm all those years ago he was the one who sheltered away from the storm. He now works as a loss adjustor, specialising in risk assessment, and insists that the accident wasn't a freak of nature at all.

Chris Condie's Anthony is the wild, talkative one. It was he who stood out in the open in the storm, daring the elements to strike him down. And who, when they didn't, danced home immortal in the rain. Until, surrounded by the conductors of letterbox and porch, the lightening struck.

At the end of every summer, Lucien finds his old pal where he lives on the street, dries him out, cleans him up and takes him away on holiday. They hole up in an out-of-season seaside resort, trying to come to terms with their past and bantering stories of freakish accidents at each other.

Condie and Schultz do much to set up this odd-couple relationship on the purely platonic level that it really is. Electricity still seems to fizz through Anthony's veins, thanks too a well judged soundtrack from Iain Kerr. Anthony, it seems, is the truly damaged one.

So when they bump into vibrant, sexy Madeleine who is holding down four different jobs at the resort, it seems natural that she should be drawn to Anthony but be able to talk privately with Lucien about his difficulties in life.

With Lesley Paul putting a wonderfully naturalistic performance as Madeleine, the play flits through this end of summer, almost-romance as they go off swimming, get drunk and lie outside making words out of the patterns of stars in the night sky.

As the holiday unfurls, the perception changes, scene by scene, as you come to realise that it was a different incident altogether which has damaged the two. It was when the girl who they both loved decided to jump from a bridge that they both lost it. And in Madeleine you have the ghastly feeling that history might be about to repeat itself.

Not only that but, thanks to the undercurrent of tension generated by the performances and the production itself, every time a character leaves the other two alone on the stage you are concerned for their wellbeing.

Under Claire Wood's clear direction, the production still has plenty of space to develop, particularly in the intensity of the three characters.

The sound design, although well conceived, also still feels a little clunky.

This is still a tight and intelligent creation of a play which, while not perfect, succeeds in illuminating its elusive sense of dislocation.

• Run ends Saturday