In 1989, the school in Bedford where teenager Robin Deacon was a pupil participated in a Sunday night religious programme featuring Harry Secombe. It extolled the virtues of the multi-racial harmony in the town. A few weeks before it was filmed Deacon, who was black, joined the school choir. Coincidence or conspiracy?
Not even by the remotest stretch of the imagination could you call this good. That is not to say that Robin Deacon's show isn't interesting: well interesting theoretically, if not always interesting in its theatrical execution. In fact, it tries to be rather too clever for its own good, turning his story of the search for the truth into a meditation on the treachery of truth and storytelling, and the way it is possible to find what you want embedded in any narrative; whether it is an announcement of the second coming, or a coded message in a school photograph that spells out the racial insult "coons".
The show plays rather cleverly on the awkwardness of the audience and it constantly defies expectations. But its potential is squandered by the throw everything in the pot approach. A really good collaborator/director might have made a quirky show into a very good one.
· Until August 30. Box office: 0131-668 1633
