As they say a week's a long time in festival going so here are brief notes before it all fades from my not very retentive memory.

The Crucible - My first EIF show and it's a cracker. Beautiful choreography beautifully brought to life by the dancers, lovely music, excellent staging.  The essence of the story clearly told and helped by making explicit from the start the relationship between Proctor and Abigail.  No wonder dates have now been announced for Autumn performances in Scotland. I expect a world tour thereafter.

Trainspotting Live - billed as immersive it certainly was.  Two rows of spectators on either side of a long tunnel under the conference centre.  Fast and furious telling of the tale by a brilliant cast of four running up and down in between and often amongst us.  All the filth and squalor and the humour of Irvine Welch's masterpiece brought to throbbing life.  Not for the fainthearted.

Super Sunday - under the big top in the Meadows out of the rain half a dozen Finnish lads jumped, tumbled and generally threw themselves about on seesaws, trampolines and spinning machinery.  Impressive acrobatics and not so impressive horse impersonations.

Being Norwegian - a short, delicate and touching tale of two incomplete human beings coming together finely performed by two excellent actors.

Solitary - in a performance space seemingly made of four shipping containers bolted together a man's confinement alone, his numbingly repetitive routine, his occasional conflicts with his guards, his anguish, his release and subsequent failure to re-establish relationships or to find employment, his final retreat into a living space uncannily similar to his prison cell.  All are effectively and silently presented by five talented performers.

Big Bite Breakfast - after coffee and croissants a packed house were entertained for an hour by excellent players who performed five sketches.  I found three of the five first class.  Top marks must go to the witty deadpan parody of the encounter between private eye and femme fatale from the  black and white movies of yesteryear.

Anguis - the setting, which is a set building success, is a recording studio where Cleopatra (visiting the land of the living for the purpose) is being interviewed for a radio programme.  Interlaced with her interview responses she sings, accompanying herself on the guitar.  So far so mildly entertaining as she displays her queenly strength and mocks the legend of death by asp. Fake news apparently. So further so still mildly amusing.  The interviewer we learn is a virologist and clinician.  She hears sounds that neither Cleo nor the studio engineer do and becomes increasingly distracted.  The play morphs into being about a medical negligence incident she's been accused of.  Whistle blowing is mentioned and probably metoo and feminism and other miracles of modern life but my attention had spanned its span.

Bleeding Black - growing up in rugby mad New Zealand.  Stop playing or harden up is the mantra.  Obsession, in this case with rugby but it could be with anything else can lead to doom.  That's what is put before us in this well constructed and performed one man show.  Rugby fans may get more out of it than others but it's a timely lesson for us all.

Parasites - great performances, especially from the lead actress in a dynamic, sometimes trite but always honest story of a girl with issues.  Expelled from school she spirals downwards.  Bad company,  abusive boyfriend, a spell in prison for assaulting her mother, pregnancy thanks to now junkie boyfriend, child in care, attempt to break the cycle and get a menial job in her old school, rejection.  I left with tears in my eyes.  Five stars from me.

Antigone - a novel and delightfully fresh presentation of the play.  All the drama and all the conflict of ideas, all the debate over loyalty to state or to family, all the themes are there but wrapped in what you could truthfully descibe as a joyous party atmosphere.  Indeed it begins with a party to celebrate the victory of Thebes where the lively cast of eight dance and throw balloons about.  The balloons are central to the show, burst as laws are discarded or trust broken.  Members of the audience are brought into the action from time to time.  The whole enterprise is steered to its heartbreaking conclusion with a deft lightness of touch.  Very impressive from this young cast.  

The Merry Wives of Windsor -  or in the Grads production, of a steamie nearer home.  It's Shakespearian comedy in all its glory.  The cast romp energetically through the twists and turns of Falstaff's plot to have it away with one or more of the eponymous wives and their counter trickeries.  A jealous husband disguises himself, a Welsh parson and a French doctor almost come to blows, an unwanted suitor is fooled, true love conquers and all is forgiven.  It's going on to Stratford with all my best wishes for success.

Pool (no water) - for the Grads other show a piece from the pen of the redoutable Mark Ravenhill.  Played with intensity, staged with imagination, directed with formidable skill.  Could not have admired it more.