A woman and her squeeze

Edinburgh theatre

Squeeze Box
Assembly Rooms

Pramface
Gilded Ballon

Ann Randolph's semi-autobiographical monologue - about working with the mentally ill in a homeless shelter in Santa Monica and her affair with an accordionist - sounds weird and heavy-going, yet is anything but.

She tells her story with verve and humour, and just when you think Randolph is about to come over all icky or earnest, she makes a sly observation or a wonderfully un-PC comment.

The characters - her lover, the shelter's clients, her co-workers - are all acutely observed and the love story provides some of the show's best laughs, as she describes the camping trip where their relationship was consummated.

This is a touching and uplifting show that restores one's faith in humanity; so good, in fact, that I'm prepared to overlook the shocking outbreak of banjo-playing in it.

Pramface is another monologue, written and performed by Lizzie Hopley. She plays a celebrity-obsessed, unemployed young woman who catalogues pictures of famous people under headings according to their attractiveness, including It-girl, lollipop, blinger and - her latest - pramface, someone who looks like they should be pushing a pram around a council estate.

Hopley also plays a journalist chasing an exclusive with a teenager on a Pop Idol-type show whom she has vilified for his looks. The two tales intertwine in a disturbing but darkly comic revenge drama.

Hopley is utterly convincing and the story is never predictable.