The World's Wife

There are a lot of women connected with this show, most of them dead or mythical. However, two are very much alive and are jointly responsible for the sheer wit, verve, drive and exhilaration of it.

The other is the sublime Linda Marlowe, who performs them with the intensity for which she is renowned but also with a sharp comic timing that often leaves you gasping.

Just try her Eurydice, who certainly didn't want to be dragged from Hades by that self-centred minstrel Orpheus. Or the Kray Sisters, celebrants of woman's suffrage who made 1960s London safe from muggings. And then there's Mrs Midas who took very special care that her husband never touched her once his gift was bestowed upon him.

There are also the serious poems, none more so than The Devil's Wife, which Marlowe made quite clear is about Myra Hindley. Or Medusa, she of the permanent bad hair day, who is very touchingly portrayed.

My particular favourite was Circe, the Southern USA cook with a thing for pigs. I also loved Mrs Beast, whose husband never hides anything, to her obvious delight.

This is one of the events of the Fringe, a brilliantly performed piece of theatre that does magnificent service to a terrific group of poems. Truly one not to be missed

Reviewed at Assembly @ George Street at the 2009 Edinburgh Fringe.