Aurora Nova is quite the most thrilling venue on the fringe, but even here not all that glitters turns out to be gold. This staging of Robert Louis Stevenson's novella about love, intrigue and murder in the South Seas is charming and lovely to look at. It is, however, let down by the script and a delivery "in English, French and pidgin" that is sometimes unintentionally comic. Too often the childlike becomes merely childish.
That said, there is a dottiness about the proceedings which involves lots of beautifully textured visuals using an overhead projector, shadow play and live musical accompaniment. It is rather appealing, as you might expect from Theatre de Marquis, who once produced an operetta featuring singing cows. Certainly, the show conjures up the exotic colours of the beautiful island where dried coconut trader John Wiltshire comes to live and discovers that there is a snake in paradise.
The play is staged in the very church where Stevenson himself used to come. But while it plays homage to the writer, it also doesn't do him any favours, and the way the stage action is always used as an illustration makes the 80 minutes drag.
· Until August 21. Box office: 0131-558 3853
