I've seen some magic stuff in the Festival so far. Last night, went to see 'Realism' by Anthony Neilson. Who it appears is the son of Sandy Neilson (who was in it) who is the very dear friend (as he would have you believe it at any rate) of Robin Thompson. Does that mean I almost know the author? Could wangle an introduction at the very least? Perhaps. Anyway.

'Realism' had a cracking set. A steeply raked stage. Household appliances set into it at dramatic angles. Water that showered down on the main protagonist at one point. A set of whatever it is that's needed to fly people - as one lady was lowered dramatically from the flies at one point wearing a Monroe style white dress and showring handfuls of red rose petals as she went. And the the piece de resistance. A final curtain that looked like it was a borinf old white fire curtain (and how could they finish such a beautiful looking production in such a mundane way?) until the lights came up and the middle front section was a full kitchen set and the main guy proceeded to open the door at one side of it, wander in, make himself a cup of tea and then sit idling. Until the house lights came up. Everyone sat, not quite knowing what to do. And then some brave soul clapped and others haltingly followed suit. And then people started standing up, the usherettes flung wide the doors, people realised in greater numbers that this was indeed the end, and clapped more rousingly. As the guy went on supping his tea. A magic ending. The play was pretty good too. But stole my heart for the beauty and (pretentious for a moment) audacity of the production.

At the weekend, I saw in succession, "Into the Hoods" by Zoo Nation. A fabulous rendition of "Into the Woods", hip hop style. Featuring the cutest four year old surely to grace the Udderbelly stage, hip hopping in the midst of the most fantastically toned dance troupe you could hope for.

Then we had "Chalk Circle", an American High School production. This was intended as an educational (idea stealing) session so I went along with some brave souls frm my cast. Unfortunately the story - according to Brecht - had been given a revisionist treatment, making it the story of Grusha. Should I say Hannah, as all the characters had been renamed. To make them more pronouncable for the poor californian school kids? It was done in a kind of gypsy peasant style, all floating tunics, violins, recorders, swathes of silk and given dramatic musical numbers which punctuated proceedings disconcertingly. Still, the Grusha tale was retold pretty faithfully. And I did have a moment of horror 40 minutes in when I reflected on all that was to come and yawned at the duration of the piece. Luckily they'd abandoned Azdak - replacing him with an emporer who only appeared to sit in judgement of the final case - so all the wordy scene 5 was gone. I'm wondering about having two intervals to give people a bit of a break from the worthy wordiness of it.

And then the lovely Siobhan and I went to see Midnight Cowboy on Sunday. One of the hot tickets of the fringe apparently. Although the theatre was half empty. Apparently everyone is suffering from the grounded planes in the wake of the latest 'terror' alert. 23 people - or maybe it's 30 now - who were plotting to blow up 10 planes mid air en route to America with bottles of innocuous liquids and i-pods. Anyway.

The script suffered from having been a film and having been faithfully replicated for the stage. But the two central performances were remarkable. Ratso (?) particularly so. Quite how he has the energy to twitch so much day after day for 28 days or however many shows they're doing is beyond me. To a half empty house. Made me think that I should put a little more enthusiasm into the half-arsed fringe show I'm in that now opens in a week. A week today in fact. On which note I should go as the evening's rehearsal will be beginning in 4 minutes. Although they'll all be late. But I keep patiently waiting and hoping...