Grid Iron has done it again. In another thrillingly intelligent site-specific production, in a disused Victorian fish market, the company has crafted an astonishing piece of theatre, about fecundity, passion, fire, fantasy - and cheese.
Based on Angelica Jacob's novel of the same name, the play is a thoroughly Gallic celebration of what happens to a woman's body, and her desires, during pregnancy. No mention of stretch marks and piles, here; instead a hauntingly poetic drama about Odissa, a French writer who falls pregnant to her fire-eating lover, Serge, during the hottest summer on record. He leaves her and she slips into a reverie of dreams, some jealous fantasies, some luridly erotic scenarios, some murderous nightmares, fuelled by her craving for ever stronger cheese. Food, fire and sexuality collide magically again and again in Ben Harrison's production, which takes the form of a sensual promenade journey through the venue's many evocative nooks and crannies.
The atmosphere is drippingly erotic and deeply surreal, and what's most impressive is that, over two hours, the play keeps surprising us. Vast doors suddenly open out onto the cold street, where torches burn against the black of night; Serge taunts us with fire, sidling up too close for comfort, rubbing the tongue of heat against his bare body; Odissa's waters break and flood the floor we're standing on. Every detail is perfect, each performance is extraordinary (especially Cait Davis as Odissa), and Catherine Lindow's set design evokes both intimate and vast spaces with equal panache.
Fermentation dramatises the stepping from the world of unspoken desire into a flame-fanning realm of untrammelled sensual possibilities. Grid Iron is to be congratulated on a spellbinding show.
· Ends tonight, then at the Underbelly, Edinburgh (0131-473 2000) from February 12.
