Adam is the exact opposite of Eve.  The gender change is female to male, the timescale is years not decades, the theatrical presentation is large and open not small and intimate, the acting is noisy and vigorous not quiet and reflective.  But the impact is the same.  You feel for them deeply and rejoice in their eventual liberation whilst quietly echoing Archie Rice's punchline "thank God I'm normal".  It's superb.  Too late now to see it in the Fringe but both Adam and Eve will be reprised at The Citizens in September.  Go west young man.

It's probably pointless talking about music and the hopes I had of learning much from the talk given by Sally Beamish and Evelyn Glennie at the Book Festival were unfulfilled, not to say dashed.

Another disappointment was Rain.  This was an object lesson, masterclass even in how many ways you can run about a stage for over an hour to very loud music without saying anything.  I couldn't even work out by the end why it was called Rain.

A much more jolly and rewarding hour was spent in the company of Nicolas Hytner former director of the National Theatre.  He's written a book about his twelve year tenure, some of which I'd heard read on Radio 4 so not all his anecdotes were new to me but even second time round they were fun.

Seagulls was also great fun but raised a question in my mind.  Was the intention to illuminate Chekhov's play The Seagull?  I hope not because it didn't.  But I suspect the play was just a hook to hang their anarchic and surreal vision on and in that it triumphantly succeeded.

The actress Harriet Walter has made something of a thing about performing male roles in Shakespeare's plays in recent years and shared her thoughts about that and other theatrical matters while promoting her book Brutus and other Heroines.  It was an interesting session though I can't say that I shared her enthusiasm for the all female Julius Caesar set in a female prison.

The Fringe is notorious nowadays for the number of stand-up comedy shows on offer, 144 pages in the programme against 106 for theatre.  I saw only one and even that was only half a comedy show.  The classicist, novelist and former comedian Natalie Haynes was at Blackwell's bookshop to publicise her rewriting of Oedipus the King as a novel and from Jocasta's point of view.  It was a mildly humorous presentation and I enjoyed her thesis equating Greek tragedy with soap opera.  I'd like to read Children of Jocasta but it will have to wait.

George Street's temporary installations were being torn down as I left Charlotte Square yesterday afternoon and scaffolding was being loaded onto trucks from a Bridges venue as I left Blackwell's in the evening.  That sad moment has arrived when it's all over till next year.  But not before I've seen my last show this afternoon.