Ruhe - which means "silence" in German - is an extraordinary piece of theatre. It deals with the thorny subject of Dutch citizens voluntarily collaborating with the SS Brownshirts during the second world war after Holland had been invaded by the Nazis. The performance juxtaposes a selection of Schubert's serene "partsongs" with monologues taken from transcripts of interviews with the volunteers.

In the current climate of economic recession and general "cutting back" on outings this summer, numbers attending performances in this year's Fringe have dropped considerably. With this in mind, it is perhaps necessary to take more consideration than usual in choosing what to recommend to the few who journey out to the festival. One piece which is really essential to see is Ryan JW Smiths New World Order.

I had a laugh even on the way in to see Sir Barrington Ganch the other day.

As its title suggests, this new play by Bill Dunlop has more than just a soupcon of the French about it. Set squarely amid the chaos of Paris during the Revolution, it filters events through the thoughts and experiences of three lowly seamstresses: Bleu, Blanc and Rouge. In so doing, it gives us a glimpse into what it might be like to live in a place and time where people gave up their lives for a dream, some might say a fantasy, of freedom.

There are fine theatrical moments in Jidariyya, from the opening in a hospital emergency room to its close. The journey of a soul is, of course, a frequent and time-honoured motif in the literature of all cultures, and Mahmoud Darwish's poetry nods frequently toward a variety of sources.

Slick lives up to its name in the perhaps somewhat restricted space of Traverse 2; essentially a pantomime for adults, the performance seen bowled along in fine style, taking no prisoners and occasionally shocking audience members.

"Cúirt An Mhéan Oíche" in the original, "The Midnight Court" to those not blessed with an understanding of the Irish tongue, is a bold jeu d'esprit in which the language of saints and scholars is booted up the backside with Father Jack alacrity.

A friend, an intellectual property lawyer, once speculated what music might play in institutional day-rooms when we became geriatric: 1970's pop, if this adaptation of Mr. Loveday's Little Outing is anything to go by.

A Japanese parable of greed, sloth, industrialisation, lust, deception, lies, and stupidity. Not bad for just over 60 minutes of exceptionally good theatre.

The Tell-Tale Heart is an adaptation of an Edgar Allan Poe gothic, dark tale. A gripping monologue, we are from the beginning taken right into the mind of the insane character who has methodically plotted the gruesome murder of an old man who lives in his house.

Alfred Jarry's original production of Ubu Roi in 1896 caused riots on its opening night and has since shaped alot of absurdist, Dada and Surrealist arts.

Never having been to see anything at the free fringe, I had no idea what to expect.

As the man himself admits at the end of the show, the big old barn that is Traverse 1 is really a bit too remote to let the most people get the most out of Daniel Kitson’s intimate lament for a lost home. And yet it’s a testament to his sheer storytelling power that he manages to make it all work so well for so much of the time.

Of all the constituencies who might find themselves drawn to this production, it is undoubtedly the smallest who will be best-served. Michael Barrymore fans will not see much of the manic energy for which they presumably fell way back in his 1980s heyday; Spike Milligan fans will not see much of the zany, left-field originality that characterised the best of the former Goon’s career; but fans of former Strictly Come Dancing star Jill Halfpenny will have no trouble spotting the sparky Northern lass who can turn on a sixpence whilst flashing a winning smile, thank you very much.

Terminus is a play for three actors in rhyming couplets. Not the easiest form, nowadays at least, for dramatist or actors (or indeed, sometimes, audience).

You have to spare a thought for poor old Chekhov. There he is, a writer who created a whole genre that inspired artistic descendents of the calibre of George Bernard Shaw and Woody Allen, and then the second he goes out of copyright whole armies of also-rans take it upon themselves to adapt, transpose and generally muck about with his plays in any way they see fit.

As I write this, the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics is sprawling across my TV screen, making me reflect on the fact that, as a species, we really do like nothing better than a visual spectacular.

There are times, as a reviewer, when I find myself making a mental note to check afterwards how much the people who paid for their ticket had to part with.

This is the second visit to Edinburgh for Lynn Manning’s engrossing one-man show, which tells the story of his life from his disrupted Los Angeles childhood through to his being blinded in a bar-room shooting and his subsequent emergence as an independent poet, playwright and actor.

Visitors to this website of more than a couple of years’ vintage will remember that we used to have a scoring system for reviews that was based on how many drams of whisky you would need to consume in order to get through the show. Sadly, the drams were composed merely of pixels, but even a virtual tot of absinthe would have been appreciated when I went down to catch a glimpse of the Green Fairy the other day.