Drugs tale digs beneath surface

Borough Market ***
Pleasance Dome,
CHALK silhouettes around Bristo Square are leading the way to one show, and it's worth following them.

A girl lies dead in hospital but who's to blame and who will pay for their actions? The addict? The low-level dealer? His boss? Or the whole seedy world crawling beneath the streets of Edinburgh?

Borough Market is the ever more familiar tale of the destructive nature of addiction, and the lengths one person will go to in order to protect another, however short-sighted that may be.

Chris Starkie is terrifying as the mid-level cocaine dealer, revealing the intense fear behind a hardened exterior, while Lucas Motion is equally convincing as the upper class medical student drawn into this world by love. He is easy to empathise with, despite the fact you desperately want to knock some sense into him.

Set in a modern, classy Edinburgh flat, the contrast between the setting and the story proves just how deceiving looks can be, and gives a whole new perspective to the idyllic image of our festival city. Runs until August 25