At first it sounds like the distant hum of bees. Then the sound rises, transforms into a chuckle that turns into a keening that envelops you and creeps into your head so that you feel you are in a trance. Meanwhile, bodies twist and pull against each other, making a mockery of gravity as birth and death tumble against each other in melting flesh.
There is no point beating about the bush. This is quite simply the best show I've seen on the Fringe so far. It could well be the best show here, period. A miniature epic, based on the 5,000-year-old story of Gilgamesh and produced by the Polish company Song of the Goat Theatre, it combines polyphonic singing with physicality of such astonishing precision it makes you blink in wonder. At one point it looks as if the cast are actually moving in slow motion.
This isn't just a series of pretty pictures and nice music. Sound and movement come together and flow as one vast ocean, washing over you in wave after wave of emotion that becomes a lamentation for Gilgamesh's death, every death the world has ever known and the death we will all face. It is a show that comes straight from the belly and which lands a bull's-eye on the heart.
· Until August 29. Box office: 0131-558 3853.
