I fought on the French side at the Battle of Agincourt tonight thanks to a brilliant show called Midnight at the Boar's Head that combines Shakespeare, music, drink and party poppers.  One couple of party poopers crept away during the battle but the rest of us stayed and enjoyed the fun.

That followed hard on the heels of a red-hot production of The Erpingham Camp in which a lively company of excellent young actors handled both the physical and verbal demands of Joe Orton's little satirical gem to devastating effect. 

If you've ever seen Alan Bisset's The Moira Monologues in which amongst other characters he plays two dogs you will not be surprised that in The Red Hourglass he counts four different types of spider amongst his roles.  It's clever, witty, funny and a performance to wonder at. 

Another excellent multi-character portrayal is Miriam Margoyles Dickens' Women.  She moves from one character to the next with seemingly effortless ease and gives us some insights into Dickens the man on the way.  His favourite number we learn was 17, sweet 17.  

The Rise and Fall of Little Voice and Proof were good, solid, well acted productions from Arkle that did Edinburgh amdram proud with in the former a delightful piece of work from Bev Wright.

Not everything I've seen this week has been delightful though.  Despite its having won the Sir Michael Caine award for new writing I thought Visiting Time was a pretty feeble play whose script did not display anything in the way of literary merit. 

That Old Noir Magic is a pleasant enough late night entertainment in which a dozen jazz numbers are played and sung against a background of short clips (sometimes only a couple of words) from black and white film noir movies, the whole being linked by the singer who is at times a protagonist in the story he weaves and at times a narrator.  I'm sure it was a lot of hard work putting the show together but it all seemed a bit incoherent and led nowhere.  I'd rather have watched the movies.

I dipped my toe into the latest addition to our gallery of festivals by going to a talk at The Fashion Festival.  Dressing The Self: Art, Fashion and Neuroscience was delivered by Ludovica Lumer who is a philosopher turned neurologist/physiologist/biologist as those really bright people cross boundaries in a way that we mere mortals can only wonder at.  She's busy putting people through MRI scanners to try to work out the relationship between the brain and beauty.  At least that's my nutshell view.  If you want a more extended discussion try here  (Italian required) or read her book (Italian also required).