Edinburgh 2013: The Love Project - Documentary theatre with a big heart

Sixteen different real-life accounts of love are delivered by four actors in this nicely realised piece of verbatim theatre.

A joint venture between Fringe First-winning Look Left Look Right and new theatre company Every Day, it's documentary theatre to gladden the heart. We hear how couples met, what they do on Valentine's Day, what qualities they think make for a successful relationship.

It could be saccharine or grandly romantic, but what’s really appealing about this show is how they capture the cadences of everyday speech, and, through that, the small moments that make a relationship special - as well as the things that drive you nuts. Amy and Andy recall how his pink Converse accidentally matched her polka-dot wedding dress; Cora laughs at how she once sulked for two days because William objected to the way she cut a loaf of bread...

The actors not only use word-for-word transcripts, but also recreate the laughs, the stutters, the false starts - which give away so much about people’s real feelings - and really embody their several ‘characters’ through individual gestures, ticks and accents. Something about the re-utterance of romantic clichés or confessions, or the accidental slippages, often make the accounts very funny - but The Love Project has a big heart, and it’s never nasty laughing at its subjects. Indeed, the show is likely to leave you with a real case of the warm fuzzies.

Till 25 August