Tom Crean was an Irishman who in the early part of the 20th century went on three Antarctic expeditions with Shackleton and Scott and came within 145 miles of the pole.
If it hadn't been for a bad cough on the morning Scott made his team selection, Crean would have certainly been amongst the five men who went with Scott on his final doomed push for immortality.
If you have never heard of Crean, it is because he was an ordinary soldier, not an officer, and because as he ruefully puts it: "It's my own fault. I never kept a diary."
This one-man show is a genuine small pleasure, the kind of piece that the Fringe often throws up that gives you an insight into unseen and unsung lives.
Told with a straightforward directness, this is sometimes as much a lecture about the labours of polar expedition as it is theatre, but somehow you don't mind in the slightest. It is full of fascinating details (you can't hide tears in the Antarctic because they steam; each man pulls four times his body weight) as well as wry asides, including Crean's damming assessment of Captain Oates as "a nice man, but a Marine: soldiers who think they can swim".
A quirky and enjoyable hour.
· Until August 28. Box office: 0131 226 2428
