Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

I think it's safe to say you won't find another show quite like this anywhere else on the Fringe. Yes, white-face is all over the Royal Mile, but not applied with the delicacy of the three young ladies in this 1920s style sort-of cabaret.

Young ladies they certainly are; polite, well spoken and frightfully refined. We'll come back later to frightfully, or at least scary.

In the meantime there's the perfection of Lillian Henley's piano accompaniments, just what silent film needs. Did I mention the silent film? Here are a whole sequence of scratchy old films that appear to be early examples of animation. In fact, they are the brilliant work of Paul Bill Barritt and yet they seem somehow incomplete. Never mind, Suzanne Andrade and Esme Appleton are on hand to interact with them.

Unlike most performers who try this technique, these exquisitely deadpan ladies are in perfect phase with their films. See houses drawn around them as flowers grow and two neighbours fight a polite plant war. See Le Chat lose all nine lives as witty deaths descend, one following another. See the book of the story of the revolting Gingerbread Men come to anatomical life.

Not just see but hear the result of biting off a Gingerbread Man's head. Which brings us back to scary. There is an increasingly sinister side to this show, particularly when the two sisters appear. They like playing with animals, with lodgers, with relations. And I do mean playing with. There was a palpable shiver of fear along the front row when they announced that they needed a new playmate.

The night I saw it the young man chosen carried it off with quiet dignity and, as with the rest of the show, it was handled superbly by the company.

Not quite cabaret, not quite comedy, not quite storytelling, this extraordinary, visually sublime example of deadpan sinister perfection is confident enough to be simply itself. It's very much at the top of my offbeat Fringe list and their website www.19-27.co.uk is a bit special, too.