IT was, the authorities assure us, on a visit to Edinburgh for an early festival that William Shakespeare coined the phrase “all the world’s a stage”, and if he could see the city now when every nook and cranny indoors and out is pressed into service as a performing space, he would feel his judgement confirmed. Every room has become a venue, while the streets provide such a wealth of entertainment that, even apart from the many free events where Irish comedians discourse and philosophy is debated, the visitor could at no expense enjoy gawking at witches near the castle where once their sisters were burned, witnessing Pussy Riot from Russia on the steps of the National Museum, seeing trapeze artists on the Royal Mile and fire-eaters alongside the National Gallery.

Were they to venture indoors, visitors could then be transported to some exotic land, such as the La La Land with the topography and streets of Edinburgh which David Greig has created with his Midsummer, part of the official festival, playing at The Hub. Greig eschews all humdrum realism to offer a glimpse of a Never Neverland which JM Barrie would have recognised, where there is a villain who bullies and blusters but who is no more real than the crocodile with the ticking clock of Peter Pan and who is comically killed off when he really threatens the idyll. Bob, our hero, ends up with a vast sum of money which he pretends comes from dodgy dealings but which spectators have been lulled into believing was delivered by angels so that he and Helena can give themselves over to the pleasures and the adventures of early love.

It is pleasure fully shared by the audience in this extravaganza. Since there can never be enough in fairyland of a good thing, Bob and Helena appear in two guises, played with youthful energy and zest by Henry Pettigrew and Sarah Higgins, and in a more wry and reflective style by Benny Young and Eileen Nicholas as their elder selfs. The atmospheric music and song are provided by Gordon McIntyre.

The Canadians have arrived in Edinburgh. So have the Italians, Australians and Americans, but the Canadians have demonstrated greater seriousness of intent by establishing a link with Summerhall and a base in a church renamed Canada Hub. Their stimulating, varied programme includes Huff, written and performed by Cliff Cardinal, which pitilessly dissects the descent of two native Canadian brothers, “products of reserve school years”, into a drug-fuelled inferno of deprivation and abuse. Cardinal initially appears with a plastic bag over his head as his main narrator considers suicide, and then gives life to a range of characters including the two boys, one of whom has intellectual disabilites, their brutal father, their mother who was driven to suicide, among others, but the move from one to the other is not always clear so that initially the development of the action is not wholly transparent. The work picks up as he illustrates aspects of life specific to the people whose life he is dramatising, such as pursuit by a malign spirit he calls the Trickster, but which could apply to a reality common to drug addicts anywhere. This is a disturbing work and Cardinal delivers a powerful, overwhelming performance.

FIRST Snow/Premiere Neige reflects a Canadian, or at least a Quebecois, experience at a point where it matches Scotland’s recent history, the two countries having lived through referendums where the pro-independence side lost. That is not the only issue under debate at a family gathering organised by Isabelle who has called together her scattered and disputatious brood to hear her announce her plans for her wealth. They laugh, sing, break into dance, quarrel and rant, none more loudly than her ex-husband Harry, an Anglophone in a French-speaking land and a conservative in politics who uses the opportunity to denounce the audience as much as the family for their comfortable ways in a world of growing inequality. The language switches between English and French, and the play has been four years in the making, with three writers and seven actors from Scotland and Quebec, but I was left with the impression of high hopes and inspired intentions in search of a satisfactory structure.

Scotland speaks for itself in many ways, and presents itself in many guises. Highland Serenade, in the venue called Paradise in Augustines, is set in Brigadoon territory, indicated by the backcloth of green glen and shining burn. The American MacDougall family return to their roots, and their experiences are conveyed in 11 songs, professionally and attractively sung by the cast, inserted into a strained plot and some forced dialogue. Of a different order is The Laird’s Big Breaxit at the Scottish Storytelling Centre, a spoof address written by Donald Smith delivered with panache by Christopher Garvie. There is a sprig of heather on the lectern and decanter of whisky on the nearby table, as the laird rehearses the main items of a manifesto he is about to issue to set up a new body to be called Story, an abbreviation for Scottish Tory. Old Etonian Gussy’s address is an invitation to seize the opportunities given by Brexit to really take back control and undo decades of wishy-washy liberal reform introduced by a local parliament he cannot bring himself to name. Garvie makes Gussy a Wodehousian aristo, with a throaty chuckle, a patronising sparkle and a false bonhomie which form the ideal accompaniment to the bombast, bluster and blether of Smith’s script. This is full-frontal satire, blunt and unsubtle like the best of the genre.

The prosaically named Scottish Drama Training Network appear at the Pleasance, with bright and sparky work Propeller, directed by Caitlin Skinner. Initially locked into tedium and hopelessness in the town of Lochie, the youth of the town are converted to idealism and activism when they decide to campaign to bring back the railway which will allow them access to the buzzing city of Edinburgh. The eight budding actors give high-octane, assured performances in a delightful plays.

THE same venue houses The Song of Lunch, a highlight of this year’s Fringe, and one of those unexpected delights which is the essence of the Fringe experience. Robert Bathurst doubles as narrator and male character waiting anxiously to meet an ex-girlfriend, now married and living in France to a successful novelist whom Bathurst, who has had a mediocre career in publishing, affects to despise. The meeting place is a restaurant they once frequented, but which has changed, as have they. Their movements are caricatured rather than reproduced in a humorous shadow show at the rear of the stage, while their attitudes of mind are conveyed in Christopher Reid’s stylish, elegant, witty, original and poetical script. Most of the work is monologue, but Rebecca Johnston makes her presence felt with her crisp delivery and smiling, seemingly soothing but pointed interventions as her companion sinks into boozy self-pity. It is going to end badly for him, and it does.

Ross Ericson is in good form as writer and performer in Gratiano at the Assembly Rooms. The character is plucked from The Merchant of Venice but is moved forward to Fascist times where he finds himself under suspicion of the murder of Bassanio. There is nothing dewy-eyed in this borrowing of Shakespeare’s comedy, or in the portrayal of Gratiano as a thug who could be active in the days of Mussolini or of the equally threatening neo-fascist groups emerging in Britain today. The work deftly and insightfully looks forward and backwards, as do many works in this year’s Festival.