Hurricane, Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh

Blown away by snooker's great anti-hero

To the early Seventies professional snooker world, dominated by the polished niceties of John Spencer and Ray Reardon, Alex Higgins was Shane MacGowan and Iggy Pop combined. The game commanded massive television audiences then, and "Hurricane" Higgins was the most exciting thing anyone had ever witnessed circling a snooker table, slotting balls in at an unheard-of speed. Hailing from a Troubles-ravaged Belfast, Higgins made snooker as cool as glam rock. Then he blew it, as he almost had to, hitting the self-destruct button until the drink, drugs and gambling ruined him.

It is an enormously sad and enthralling life, and the troubled spirit of Higgins seems to rise up through the whippet-thin body of Richard Dormer in this mighty solo performance, which deserves every fringe award out there. Dormer ( who also wrote the show) introduces Higgins as a hunched, croaking drunk in a hat and coat, before the bent figure turns to reveal the ruffled shirt and waistcoat of the young champion - the green-baize gun-slinger who would go on to turn the game of snooker upside down.

Swinging his pool cue as if it were a samurai sword, Dormer is in perpetual motion, dancing through a life that blazed with hyperactive tension and talent. Looking uncannily like Higgins, he captures every facial tic and nervy body movement as he sprints through Higgins's Belfast boyhood and his breakthrough into the ranks of a shocked snooker establishment. In 1972, at the age of 23, we see him become the youngest ever world champion, and the money and the drink and the women rain down, with Dormer scattering a suitcase full of bank notes like confetti.

But alcoholism and self-hatred set in quickly. Dormer collapses in a drunken stupor, brawls, disco dances and - a fabulous moment - arm-wrestles with Oliver Reed, as the stage fills with the debris of his life. Eventually he is wading through beer cans, cigarette cartons and betting slips, his talent drowning in excess and paranoia, even as he wins his second world championship in 1982 against the cold, calculating machine, Steve Davis.

Hurricane could easily have been clichéd and maudlin, but Dormer turns the tragic story of Ulster's ultimate snooker-hall hustler into total, hair-raising physical theatre.

Near the end, his shirt black with sweat, the actor's body seems to deflate in the face of the throat cancer that finally halted the Hurricane. Dormer's portrayal of a life lived at terminal velocity is exhaustingly energetic, yet it is filled with sadness and, like the glory days of Alex "Hurricane" Higgins himself,it is a wonder to behold.

Venue 3, 9.25pm (1hr) to 25 Aug (0131-226 2428), then touring to the Tron Theatre, Glasgow, 26-30 Aug and Sheffield Crucible, 2-13 Sept