The Jesuit Fringe Top Five

They formed my thinking, they are the coolest order in the Catholic Church (don't let the Dominicans tell you otherwise), and they encourage a spirituality that combines faith, reason and contemplation. Their church is just off the pubic triangle in Edinburgh, and if they are reading, I have the shows that will appeal to the hippest Brothers and Fathers outside of my immediate family.

I just published my interview with Het Gelud, but I am giving them the first place on this list. Not only did they reply with considered calm to my fervent questions, they are following up on a story that questions how we consume information. If their definition of theatre ("we think through fiction, reality is explored and exposed. We like theatre to be like Plato's garden though: a group of people that sits together to give some things a thought or two.") isn't persuasive enough, how about the Lady Gaga references?

Life's Too Good to be True, Underbelly, 10-13 August 2012

My next choice began its journey just around the corner from the Jesuit church in Glasgow - Scottish theatre legend Tom McGrath was working at the Third Eye Centre (now called the CCA) and wanted to discover the local version of the art being found in psychiatric wards by Jean Dubuffet. He got Angus MacPhee.

MacPhee spent fifty years in a psychiatric unit, not talking but weaving costumes from grass. From this outsider art comes Horse and Bamboo's production, Angus, Weaver of Grass. It's being touring the island and while work that has a Scottish flavour is all the rage these days, this is a way out of the typical tropes about identity, while still including a tradition that is being largely lost.

Angus, Weaver of Grass, Storytelling Centre, 16- 26 August 

I know you boys have taken a vow of poverty, so here's my first Free Fringe tip of the year (I'd like to make more, but the free shows aren't blocking up my inbox so much). Template for the Lack of Conversation matches philosophy (you all have the degrees in this) with science (you like this, usually), it has a crack at resolving that old favourite question: what is consciousness?

Of course, since the whole point of the show is to stimulate conversation, the title is nicely paradoxical. Some might even call it Jesuitical.

Template for the Lack of Conversation, Laughing Horse, 2 -18 August

The problem with being so flippant when I make these lists is that the abrupt shift to seriousness can be jarring. But Robert Johnson is not only a real life Dachau Guide, he has consciously decided not to collect money at the end of his Free Fringe show. Using a lecture format, he reveals the skills and secrets behind what must be one of the hardest, yet so important, jobs - at least for remembering the misery that history's angel has wept over.

Dachau Guide, Fiddler's Elbow, 2 - 25 August

Not quite sure how I can follow that, so I'll do for what ought to have been a predictable choice - something within the Festival of Spirituality. They've decorated the Church Hall down on the end of Princes Street like a Persian Tent, and there is a week of poetry coming up: nice early start, and turns from Liz Lochhead (Glasgow's very own), Jackie Kay and elder statesmen Aonghas MacNeacail and Stewart Conn. One of these poets played God last year at the book festival, and each hour long session includes at least three poets and a musician. It is raising funds for an Oxfam project, and there's a cool cafe next door.

St John's Church, 22 - 26 August 2012

And remember, it's okay to be in the World, just so long as you are not of the world.