Real Tour de France stories to be recycled at Fringe

THE drama, controversy and personal battles at the heart of the Tour de France will take centre stage at the Fringe.

Lance Armstrong is one of three cyclists whose real-life struggles and triumphs at the world's most famous cycle race are turned into the docu-drama Pedal Pusher, which is being staged as part of the Zoo Roxy programme.

The physical theatre show draws on interviews, archive footage and news reports to recount five years of sporting history, including Armstrong's battles with cancer and the allegations of drug abuse that have dogged the event.

The EICC's programme includes America's oldest a cappella choir, the Whiffenpoofs, a 100-year-old troupe that has appeared on the likes of the Oprah Winfrey Show, Saturday Night Live and The West Wing, and Rhythm Drum and Dance, a spectacular new show from Berlin, choreographed by 1980s chart-topper Falco.

Two classic Scottish plays – Lewis Grassic Gibbon's Sunset Song and Neil M Gunn's The Silver Darlings – are being given prime slots in the Assembly Rooms line-up. Adapted by Peter Arnott, they will be performed by Aberdeen Performing Arts.

Assembly's programme also features Joe Power, a controversial new medium who claims to be able to speak to the late Beatle John Lennon and who recently appeared on Derren Brown Investigates.