"Growing up," says Rain Pryor, "I always felt that everyone belonged to this club and I turned up too late to get the password." The daughter of a black man and a Jewish woman, she was an outsider not only in mainstream America but in her parents' own families. She was even too square for Mom and Pop, the drug-loving, hooker-addicted comedian Richard Pryor and the blonde, blue-eyed go-go dancer who thought she was a black militant. The name Rain, she says, came out of a bong. "My parents were toking on some pretty good weed."
The best part of Rain's one-woman show, Fried Chicken and Latkes, is the story of her crazy childhood, from the days when her parents were together, fighting and getting high, to what happened when Shelley caught Richard in flagrante with three women. It's both funny and uplifting: you can't help rooting for six-year-old Rain when she bites the kid who called her a "nigger", then informs him he's a "motherfucker". What works less well is when the inspirational message becomes explicit: when, for example, she tells us how acting taught her to accept her ... zzzz ... many sides. As for the singing that punctuates the show, the charitable description would be "hearty".
· Until August 28. Box office: 0131-226 0000.
