The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart

You'll have to act fast if you want to catch this gloriously daft musical romp at the Fringe - tickets are going faster than Tam o' Shanter's mare.

This perhaps suggests Edinburghers aren't all as tightly wound as the lady of the title, a folk music expert from the city's School of Scottish Studies who ventures to deepest, darkest Kelso to talk about the topography of hell. Things do not turn out as planned.

This isn't the first time David Greig has written a script in ballad form – his brilliant Yellow Moon was subtitled The Ballad of Leila and Lee – but here he comes together with man-of-the-moment musical director Alasdair Macrae (The Government Inspector ) to weave together traditional and original music with a spot-on send-up of academic meaninglessness.

Greig's characters inhabit a very specific world, but his themes are epic as ever and director Wils Wilson takes plenty of time to pause amid the hilarity and give genuine power to the silliest of situations. Madeleine Worrall is terrific in the title role, unravelling with moist-eyed grace, while Andy Clark gives his all to scenes requiring him to strip to his vest and pants and be tortured with indecent relish by his castmates.

The mockery of conference etiquette is merciless but hugely affectionate, and the contrasting of Prudencia's purist repression with the Twitter-friendly soundbites of her nemesis Colin Syme works because there's so much truth to it. Hell, it seems, is other academics.

The line between observer and participant is cheekily danced across as audience members are flirted with, ridden and led in celebratory chanting, and by the end an eternity of trawling archives is put into perspective and the power of Kylie creates a spiritual experience that won't quickly be forgotten.