A Series of Increasingly Impossible Acts (Edinburgh Fringe)

One of two productions from Sean Holmes‘ Secret Theatre ensemble at Edinburgh this year (the other is Mark Ravenhill's Show 6), this innovative exploration of love and ego is ideal Fringe fare – loud, funny and just a little bit dangerous.

The protagonist is picked out a hat each night (ours was the gutsy Cara Horgan), and is then put through a series of, well, increasingly impossible acts, from bending an iron bar to levitating a car tyre and even eating a lemon – poor thing.

This leads into a sequence of encounters with other company members, who play characters ranging from the protagonist’s first date to an interviewer who bases their line of questioning about her love life on Othello.

It’s as off-beat as it sounds, and at times fragmented beyond the point of comprehensibility. But the delivery is so playful – music, improv and wrestling abound – that this slight lack of narrative clarity doesn’t really matter.

And the central message, that love can provide a workaround for the impossibilities of life, is deeply refreshing. Unlike that lemon.

A Series of Increasingly Impossible Acts runs at Northern Stage at King's Hall until 17 August

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