Theatre review: Shut Up, Play!!

THERE are two types of Fringe show which bring most smiles to faces. There are the big-name shows, the safe bets, then there are those shows which are just so eccentric, so unexpected, that you can't help but feel glad you took a chance on them.

Shut Up, Play!! falls into this latter category, although its main techniques aren't exactly unheard of. Osaka's Original Tempo performance group create music which mixes live instrumentation, laptop samples and – mostly – looped found sounds created live on stage, but it's their amusingly precise sense of Japanese oddness that makes everything come together with such style.

The entire performance is wordless, yet so well-communicated. A flipbook introduction first tells us that we don't need to turn off our mobile phones, are allowed to speak to those next to us and make friends, but are implored not to eat or drink, for some reason. Then the Yellow Raincoat Squad – four men and a young woman in, well, yellow raincoats – get to work.

They bash hammers, crunch crisps and slap each other's bodies to find new sounds, and play these "instruments" with percussive vigour. They claim they're making a "pop experimental comedy" and it's all three of these things. There are audience participatory roles involving bowls of water and recorded speech, and also shadowplay stunts incorporating some impressive visual trickery.

The company use what they call a "factory system", which means they improvise and workshop all their ideas in rehearsal, filling the play up with them so much that there are sometimes a few actions happening at once. That the show is such a feast for the ears and eyes is only one part of its success, though – its easy charm and fluid sense of invention are what make it such a big treat.

• Until 17 August. Today 3:05pm