Blood Orange

Young Xander is persuaded by a right-wing extremist into killing the daughter of a local Pakistani family that he blames for putting his mother's corner shop out of business. Elsewhere his bipolar girlfriend is dying from bulimia. Throw in a couple of murders, a rape and a suicide and you realise it's not easy to be young in Scotland.

Blood Orange is an original work by Graham Main, written in a sort of aspiring Shakespearean, all very Mercutio Queen Mab with lots massively extended metaphors ("Your bipolar fruit cocktail will rise and grow in every garden in the land"). While at times the script is very affecting, it is overwritten. No verb or noun escapes a modifier and tenses are confused.

The play is performed with an immense amount of heart by its young cast. Unfortunately this comes at the expense of light and shade. It starts as a desperate shout, continues as a desperate shout, and finishes as a desperate shout.

This high-octane performance leads to technical difficulties. It is hard to hear explosively delivered lines. Diction need not be sacrificed to conviction. On a related note, the auditorium of the Cairns Lecture Theatre at Summerhall has poor sightlines. Anything performed too close to the ground cannot be seen by the majority of the audience.

Throughout, tragedy piles on tragedy in a way that would be funny were not the cast so very committed – instead it's quite moving.