Wielding the cabaret language of music and comedy with formidable aplomb, international phenomenon Meow Meow is hands down the genre’s hottest ticket right now. Feline Intimate, her current touring show, fully honours the tradition of vaudevillian decadence and audience-abusing antics in her repertoire.

Rich, subtle performances bring the Ripley tale to life with great attention to the novel’s Gatsby-esque atmosphere that all the film adaptations failed to convey.

After touring the world with their unusual Beckett repertoire, Irish troupe Gare St. Lazare Players hits the Fringe with their unabridged dramatization of an early short story about a misanthrope’s affair with a prostitute. In the customary vein of the playwright’s output, First Love approaches bleak themes of inadequacy and futility through the lyrically detached perspective of an existential pariah.

This Orwellian sexual nightmare finds two total strangers, Beth and Marcus, locked together with an imperative to mate. As their uneasy dialogue progresses, they share their traumatic experiences of sexual repression, evidencing their conscription into a state-sponsored treatment to eradicate undesirable behavior, which turns out to be homoerotic impulses.