EDINBURGH THEATRE
The Tailor of Inverness
****
On the Island of Aars
***
Writer and actor Matthew Zajac's solo play is about his father, Mateusz, The Tailor of Inverness.
Mateusz was a postwar Polish émigré who settled in the Scottish city, founded a small business, married a local girl, joined the British Legion and played bingo.
These are the bare bones of a story that becomes ever more complicated and unsettling as we learn of Mateusz's long journey across wartorn Europe to freedom and - in a subtle metaphor running through the play's 75 minutes - how we can reinvent ourselves by assuming another garb, such as a different army's uniform or national dress.
The author appears as his father and, just as we think we know the older man, starts telling the rest of Mateusz's story as himself - and it's not what we are expecting.
Beautifully performed, and directed by Grid Iron's Ben Harrison, with simple props, intelligent use of a back projection and atmospheric onstage music by fiddlers Gavin Marwick and Jonny Hardie, this is a deeply affecting piece of personal theatre that I heartily recommend.
From the sublime to the ridiculous, in the nicest possible way, as Chris Larner and Mark Stevens (creators of The Translucent Frogs of Quuup), take us to another wonderful comedy musical, On the Island of Aars.
A rocky outcrop far off the Scottish coast, the Aars end of nowhere, as it were, is peopled by a lonely young woman, Morag (Laura Main), madasdogs Calvinist ministers Donald and Hamish (Mike Wilson) and a cavedweller (Larner). They are joined by the sexually voracious Puupiline, a Dutch health and safety inspector, and much nonsense ensues involving the haggis crop, long-lost fathers and 1970s concept albums. Gloriously silly fun.
Both to 25 Aug (0131 226 0000; www. edfringe.com) ¦
