And yet the attempt to turn onlookers into participants in this bare-bones piece about two

And yet the attempt to turn onlookers into participants in this bare-bones piece about two women (one Irish, one Israeli) who share a prison cell initially feels showy.Between Nicole Rourke’s feisty Catherine – caught smuggling weapons to Israel for her Palestinian lover – and Sivan Horesh’s Liat, driven by abuse to kill her husband, there is little room for empathetic manoeuvre. It sounds like a direct challenge from the Tmu-Na Holon Theatre’s artistic director, Nava Zukerman, who has founded the Israeli company’s considerable reputation on a raw, movement-based acting style rather than crowd-pleasingly wrought texts. What transpires is less a show in a trunk, than a Pandora’s Box of period ephemera: vaudeville, ballroom dance and recital are performed with a mannered expressionism that moves from the precious to the grotesque. Working their way through these quick-change, self-referential dance pieces, Williams and Hopkins’s carefully lumpen choreography and minimal script brilliantly capture the mounting desperation of an untalented double- act whose fixed smiles and backstage dejection signal their awareness that they are indeed an endangered species, destined to move “Off Broadway” into oblivion.
n The Gilded Balloon Theatre (venue 38). To 31 Aug (not 25) 7.30pm”I don’t make no shows for no one,” a scowling red-head sneers at the newly arrived audience, while a traumatised-looking blonde, speaking in halting English, wanders round proffering mugs of coffee and baring bandaged parts of her body to all and sundry. She is tall and muscular, he small, with an Errol Flynn moustache.

Impeccably clad in the dinner dress of the 1930s, the pair look as if they have just landed their instrument from the deck of some gin-soaked cruise ship, a mismatched Fred and Ginger ready to start the show right here. A large piano bound in canvas straps staggers from the back of the stage, weaving drunkenly before coming to an exhausted halt to reveal the uneven frames of Sian Williams and Mark Hopkins. Programme from Fringe Office, 180 High St, Edinburgh EH1 1QS, 10am-7pm, seven days a week (0131-226 5257 / 5259). Phone booking (Access / Visa) 9am-9pm seven days a week (0131-226 5138). Tickets also at Scottish Gas Mobile Information Centre, Princes Street Gardens, by the Mound 10am- 5.30pm.Film Festival To 25 Aug (0131-228 4051).Book Festival To 25 Aug (0131-228 5444).Military Tattoo To 24 Aug (0131-225 1188) Accommodation 9am-5pm Mon- Fri (0131-557 9655) InterCity East Coast (0131-557 3000) Airport Info (0131-333 1000) City Bus Info (0131-558 1616) City Cabs (0131-228 1211). Edinburgh International Festival To 31 Aug 21 Market St, Edinburgh EH1 1BW Open Mon-Sat 9am-7pm, Sun 10am-5pm (0131-225 5756) Tickets also at Festival venues

Edinburgh Fringe
To 31 Aug. Tickets are available on a first come, first served basis only.

We have five pairs of tickets to give away for each of the following shows:

World Cafe – A New Musical Event, right (7.30pm Graffiti, venue 96), an original musical about six college friends who reunite in their thirties to open a cafe-nightclub;
The League of Gentlemen (4.35pm Pleasance, venue 33), cruel and clever sketch comedy from three clean-cut Northern lads in dinner jackets;Kidmarks (10pm Assembly Rooms, venue 3), a new hour of stand-up material from Kevin Day, south London’s sharpest wit.o To take advantage of any of these offers, present a copy of today’s ‘Independent’ at the relevant box-office. Be prepared to take part.Pleasance, 6.45pmJohn OtwayLast chance to see one of rock ‘n’ roll’s great failures strut his stuff on the Fringe Marvellously comic.Gilded Balloon, 10.45pm. Thea Vidale

Imposing motormouth comedian makes a long-awaited return to Edinburgh after four years.
Starr Tent, 9.25pmSlava PoluninRussia’s – if not the world’s – pre-eminent clown creates an arctic blizzard in the Music Hall.Assembly, 4.45pmAnnabel GilesQuick-witted ex-weather woman explains the secrets of television. Concerto Italiano sing Monteverdi madrigals: 11am tomorrow, Queen’s Hall (0131-225 5756).