This show has impressive credentials and considerable literary strengths, starting with its warm appreciation of Edinburgh’s Meadows. A colder note follows, with our female police officer’s response to a mass brawl, from which it gradually becomes apparent that her need for good order is emotionally rooted in a difficult past. And present: the show tackles misogyny, violence and female safety in public – and private – spaces. Powerfully told, if in places it has its own too-easy stereotyping; in the sketches of the local middle-class, and the lightly sketched routine misogyny of male police officers. For all the strong writing, directing and acting, for me – but perhaps not for you – the piece doesn’t quite finish the final yards towards authentic emotional heft.

Pleasance Dome, until 25 Aug. 
tw rating 3/5 | [Alan Cranston]