The best way to approach the latest show from Fringe darlings Derevo is just not to worry your head too much about what it might mean, or whether there really is anything very much going on underneath its dazzling surface beauty. Quite simply, once again Anton Adasinky's famed troupe of Russian clowns have come up with one of the most visually ravishing shows you are ever likely to see, and if some of the imagery seems familiar from previous shows - as does the theme of the human effect upon environment and landscape - there are moments of such astonishing beauty here you really don't care too much.
Derevo have frequently done brutal, and sometimes they do playful. The pleasure of this show is that you get both. At times it's a bit like an avant-garde Lion King: a red sun rises, crab-like figures scuttle across the ground, animal figures lumber across the stage like a herd of elephants on the African plains. There is the constant drip of water, and, towards the end, a wonderful sequence of optimism and rebirth. You are constantly riveted by the sheer physical endurance of the performers, whose bodies have the suppleness of young trees caught in a hurricane. The lighting is quite exquisite, frequently appearing to be coming direct from heaven and lending the figures a kind of rapture.
That said, this is a show that sometimes has a tendency towards the self-indulgent, and displays a worrying self-reverence. Derevo regulars may feel they've been here before and that the show's strange other-worldliness and emphasis on the mythic is - although beautiful - a possible sign of a failure to engage with the real world. A show which is flawed, but at times also flawless.
· Until August 24. Box office: 0131-558 3853.
