On a planet far from ours, a giant caterpillar with a woman's face is crawling on the ground, serenaded by an unusually hairy human. The caterpillar turns into a beautiful butterfly, and the pair dance. Then a bald-headed man arrives and shoots the beguiling creature. "It was a pest," he tells his shocked friend.
There's an awful lot like this in MoonJourney, whose creator, Alice Lowe, is best known as part of the Perrier-winning Garth Marenghi project. This spoof rock musical, directed by Cal McCrystal, sees Lowe and her male co-stars attempting to save the Earth after it has been taken over by robots. On the way, it sends up not only prog-rock excess, but also vintage American sci-fi series such as Lost in Space, the Terminator movies, 1970s art films, Kate Bush and/or Hazel O'Connor, and artistic pretension in general.
You can't fault Lowe's commitment. She gives a suitably blank performance as Maggie Moss, white-leotarded lead singer of the group Triangle. The episodic "play with songs", with its sievelike plot, unconvincing costumes and cursory characterisation, neatly pinpoints the weaknesses in much "classic" science fiction. A dream sequence in which Jesus battles Hitler reminds one not just of 1970s concept albums, but also of those episodes in series such as Star Trek where exhausted scriptwriters give themselves a break from exotic aliens. And the show does contain some amusing moments, such as Lowe's encounter with the insufferably smug dolphin-headed representatives of a superior civilisation.
But MoonJourney's broad sweep is its undoing. Prog rock and sci-fi have been so comprehensively mocked that only a concentrated attack can squeeze more laughs out of them. There is wit in this hour-long production, but it is spread so thin that you frequently forget you are watching a pastiche rather than one of Edinburgh's many unintentionally lame shows.
· Until Monday. Box office: 0131-556 6550.
