Stand By Your Van
Pleasance Courtyard
****

Here's a concept that will make a show stand out on an overcrowded Fringe.

Put a large shiny truck in the centre of the Pleasance's biggest stage and get 12 actors to hang on to it, for dear life. For 80 minutes.

Publicise the fact that this crazy exercise is based on a real-life endurance "sport" in America.

Yep, this "man to van combat", so thrillingly transposed into an English setting by Anna Reynolds, is apparently what they do to pass the time in Texas.

Competitors must always keep one hand on the vehicle and, with no sleeping and only hourly five-minute breaks permitted, the person left standing wins it. The record time is 107 hours.

Director Paul Bourne certainly knows how to work an audience.

There's a whooping, adrenaline-packed start, as our pumped-up compere Phil (Darren Strange, treading an expert line between hearty and condescending) introduces us to the participants.

He then exits and a dozen people are left looking exceedingly silly clutching a large piece of grey metal.

Time constraints mean that we perforce only get thumbnail sketches of the determined/damaged individuals involved but what's compelling is the sheer grim fascination of watching people put themselves through this sort of physical and mental torture.

As the hours tick agonisingly away on a big-screen clock, the ever-dwindling rivals form shifting allegiances and then, as the sleep deprivation bites and even Phil starts going slightly bonkers, they turn on each other Lord of the Flies-style.

It's pop culture psychological acuity of the sort that, for a few minutes long ago, Big Brother promised to have, and it's gripping.

Until 31 August (www.pleasance.co.uk/edinburgh)