You could quite happily live the rest of your life without seeing another monologue about the Troubles. You could, however, make an exception for Macdara Vallely's sparky little story that is not just a rattling good yarn, but also marks the arrival of a very promising new boy on the crowded Irish playwright block.
Vallely, who also performs exceptionally, plays Colin, a teenager with barely a thought for politics as he grows up on the Catholic housing estate where his IRA father was shot. Like any teenager, Colin just wants to have fun, and the kind of fun he most wants involves stealing cars. But joyriding leads to one thing and then another and before long Colin is having a hard time keeping his kneecaps in one piece.
What lifts this above the ordinary is the swagger of the writing and the textual richness, making this more than just another Irish rites-of-passage story. Rather, it is a meditation on the nature of freedom in a world on one hand circumscribed by the laws of the British government's army and on the other by the lawlessness of the IRA. "My life, my choice, my legs," says Colin. You don't know whether to cheer or cry.
· Until August 30. Box office: 0131-668 1633.
