Here and there, now and then, absolute joy can be found on the Fringe. It's rare, to be treasured and savoured, carefully wrapped up in the mind, saved against harsher, bleaker times. 'Subway' is one such wee gem, a piece of theatre almost impossible to fully describe but also impossible to forget once experienced. 'Experienced' is the apposite term in this case; a combination of acting, music and production which strips theatre to its essence and rebuilds to leave its audience to bounce joyously into the street.

Scruggs leaves Hull for his native Leith turf, intent on re-bonding with his Dad, only to discover that there ain't no sunshine any more, only a malfunctioning dystopian nightmare in which DoorCorps controls all life and movement, especially for the 'underemployed'.

Scruggs re-encounters Pugsley, and together this ill-assorted duo proceed to investigate the reasons for the disappearance of Scruggs' Dad, finally tracked to a drowning tower block on Leith's waterfront.

The place Scruggs returns to is a place of deep socio-economic division, the doctors from the shiny new hospital more concerned to drown their own sorrows than attend to uninsured patients. Pugsley's attempt to raise resistance ends disastrously, and it's down to Scruggs and his enigmatic father to achieve a strange and fleeting victory over the forces of social oppression.

In plain prose, the tale might fail to hold. What does hold the audience is the sheer energy of 'Subway', linked as it so closely is to the music, provided here by a seven-piece band of Kosovar musicians.

The driving energy of the band continually push the play onward, and their abilities make them part of the action rather than its accompaniment. Sandy Greirson and Rosalind Sydney make the absolute most of what this piece has to offer them. Musically and theatrically a joy to behold and listen to, 'Subway' manages to offer a ray of hope against the spectre of an all-too-believable future of increasingly enforced normative behaviour.

Catch it before its run ends in Edinburgh and it decamps to the Lyric, Hammersmith. Fellow reviewer Neil Cooper of 'The Herald' gave this show a glowing review and five stars, with which this reviewer concurs completely.

Time: 14-26 August, times vary (see Traverse and Fringe Programmes for details)

Copyright Bill Dunlop 2007. Published on EdinburghgGuide.com 2007