Barflies

There was a time when Charles Bukowski's prose was the main means of sexual awakening of teenage boys around the world. Alcohol-fuelled, arrogant, animalistic and brimming with aphorisms, it easily translated into many a culture's youth's cult material. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that Bukowski's work sits comfortably in a bar in Edinburgh, even decades after its heyday.

Grid Iron's adaptation – based on three stories from the 1967 collection The Most Beautiful Woman in Town – is even smoothly rendered into the Scottish vernacular. Any flashes of the post-war American angst and disillusionment are gently and skilfully glossed over with a kind of artistry uniquely characteristic of this particular company.

Producer Judith Doherty and director/adaptor Ben Harrison have picked a site laden with ornate chandeliers, and enhance the deep red and gilded New Town pub gorgeousness with atmospheric fake smoke, some most exquisite live piano music courtesy of Silent Dave – David Paul Jones, and a magnificent display of the bar centre-piece itself.

However, their greatest feat is a glorious theatricalisation of their chosen material – both textual and textural. Keith Fleming is the lazy, constantly dishevelled, sharp-tongued bohemian Henry, complemented beautifully by the fiery Gail Watson, who unfurls a whole range of moving and memorable portraits of the unfortunate women associated with him. To call their performances visceral would be rather an understatement when these guys actually 'rip' their vital organs out and fling them across the bar towards each other. Their sex scenes too are totally uncompromising, both in their tenderness and crudity. And when they are not leaping across the furniture, screwing and unscrewing, swilling and spilling bottles of various beverages around their stage, the two engage in some thoroughly enchanting fox-fur and bottle opener puppetry.

Grid Iron have yet again pulled off a marvelous success – easily one of the best shows this year and quite possibly a winner within the company's own repertoire. And they have shown that just like the subject of their fitting tribute, they mature extraordinarily well as they line up effortless, unpretentious, penetrating modern classics one after another.