Faust/us @ Sweet Grassmarket

It begins with a deconstruction and ends in destruction. Calum MacAskill's one man piece, adapted from Marlowe's classic morality tale of a pact with the Devil, playfully suggests at the start that the audience just want 'action, not art'- before taking his Doctor Faustus on a grim stream-of-consciousness journey into the abyss.

With incredible sound and lighting ( courtesy of JD the director and Paul Henry's sound effects ) and his own eye-popping animation and shadow puppetry, bleeding into physical theatre, this is not a show for a sensitive audience: the crackling static representing Mephistopholes ' voice, coupled with glitchy montage images is at times reminiscent of video artist Chris Cunningham's jarring collaborations with Aphex Twin- I can think of no higher compliment. MacAskill's own acting skills are considerable- he plays the Doctor as, variously; priapic, innocent, vulnerable and utterly demented.

Using tape as symbolism for capturing memories of ephemeral things and a mind unravelling, Doctor Faustus fashions a feminine form out of the tape which once bound him, but from which he broke free.

The monochrome palette of MacAskill's clothes even serve as props- he portrays Gretchen, a chosen wife for the Doctor as a serene maid in a white cap and using just his white shirt, which he puffs out, she is pregnant, then by flattening the garment, a cradle is created. His depiction is refreshingly non-camp.

As the tragedy progresses, the 'destroyer of worlds' plunges the moon into the ocean and the tape beside the Doctor spits out a hellish infinite mantra. Faust/us could be a warning call not to become enslaved by either our basest desires, or that insidious modern disease technology- once the beast is freed, there is no turning back.

I'll never hear Doris Day's Que Sera,Sera in quite the same way again...

A kinetic thrill- here's hoping the incendiary young talent MacAskill gets the larger venue he deserves next time.