Having flown in that day from two weeks in Poland and Germany a young American told me she assumed her linguistic problems were over but that proved to be only half true when the first thing she did was to go to the Lyceum to see The Guid Sisters.

I've neither read nor seen the play in its original French (Canadian) but its Scots version is a delight to the ears, though a definite challenge to visitors. My memories of the production I saw on the Fringe in the early nineties are dim to say the least but if it sparkled as this one did it's a shame that it has taken 20 years for the play to appear again.

Two and a half hours of argument, bickering, bitching and downright vituperation; all of it entertaining and served up with both humour and poignancy.

It culminates in the protagonist being stripped of her every possession by the so-called guid sisters so it is surely ironic that the play ends with the cast singing A Man's a Man for A'That.  But then perhaps it illustrates in a different way from the poet's intention that we are all equal in that, as my young American playgoer remarked, there's a beast in all of us.