This show is rough but glorious puppetry and superb musicianship in a version of the classic Faust that is wonderfully easy to follow. Three men greet us and display proudly the playboard for the puppetry that is also a magnificently roughly hand-made musical instrument. The men are all excellent musicians and singers, which they make clear from the start by performing a musical overture.

Singing in harmony and for the most part speaking in wonderfully simple and clear English (this is a Scandinavian company which made a huge opera of Faust, and created The Story of Faust as a companion piece for younger audiences), they use roughly-made puppets, simple automata and scraps of foam and fabric fur to tell the story of the scientist/scholar/researcher Faust and the wolf-like demon from Hell Mephistopheles – or Mephisto to his friends.

There are plenty of charming moments in this piece. The cool Mephisto, who is like a public servant from Hell, the talking heads on separate stands on either side of the playboard, the rough mechanical scene changes. The moral message is abundantly clear as well: Faust can have whatever he wants for the 24 years of ultimate power – as long as it’s sinful. Becoming royalty can’t happen as this is a God given thing. Marriage is out of the question as it is a union consecrated in Heaven. When the time is up Faust tries to repent but it is too late – he’s in the clutches of the Devil.

These three performers, while highly accomplished with their musical instruments, are less skilled and practiced with their puppets. The rough designs and fabrication of the puppets and set would make it hard for skilled puppeteers to get much out of them, and the places where this performance works best is in the music, singing, and witty wordplay. If more time, effort, and money were invested in skilled designers and puppet makers, this would be a little gem of a show. Yet despite its restrictions in this regard, it’s still a very good show for family audiences and makes the story of Faust both easy to understand and highly entertaining.

Framing the large table in the middle of the stage are, on one side, a menu on a chalkboard and on the other a pot-bellied stove. A few buckets full of stones lie around in front and a shopping trolley of porridge packets is behind. The menu for today is a starter of Porridge, main course Stone Soup and to finish a Gingerbread Man. All well and good as the charmingly engaging Andy Lawrence gets to work on delivering three tales beginning with ‘Once upon a Time…’

With a remarkable array of puppets and transforming objects, the three stories are told in this one-man show with wit and charm. They are told exactly as on the menu, and most of us are familiar enough with the tales to remember them fondly, but of course for the children in the audience it may be the first time. There’s an echo of Old Mother Hubbard about the first telling as granny and her dog run out of food and get a never-ending porridge pot from the magic curiosity shop. The table and boxes transform and transform again in a series of pleasing reveals. Rocks are stuck together to create a magnificent troll face and the audience is encouraged to throw imaginary ingredients into the soup pot. A shape is cut out of cookie dough and a hilarious gingerbread man runs riot over everything, including animals that appear out of buckets.

The whole show is great storytelling entertainment and the audience has a rollicking good time. Like a good meal out, you’re left with a satisfied feeling in your belly, but two key ingredients are a little light on the plate – some good emotional gristle to chew on and the spices of danger, tension and risk.

I’ve had a blindfold-filled time of it at this year’s Fringe. Over at the Filmhouse, I was whispered to by ten-year-olds through an ‘ear trumpet’ as they watched a film for the first time and described what they were seeing. Belgian artist Britt Hatzius’s piece Blind Cinema is a joy to experience – thoughtful, playful, and downright different to anything else on offer. Verity Standen’s triumphant Hug has returned to Forest Fringe as part of the British Council Showcase. Sitting in a community hall, a choir of voices sweep past you, voices stunningly melting into one another and floating past you. A hand touches your hand, brings you to your feet, and embraces you gently. The divine song continues as you are tenderly hugged. It’s one of the most generous pieces of work I’ve ever experienced, totally free of ego and full of human empathy. The blindfold is integral to both of these experiences.

The blindfold seems less vital to the experience of To Sleep, to Dream. The piece takes place in the Tom Fleming Centre – an imposing, Hogwarts-like school that’s slightly intimidating but worth going out of your way to locate. We are led down the silent, grand hallways by a softly spoken, seductive ‘experience producer’ and take our seats in a large and dimly lit hall. Daniel Marcus Clark, the writer and director of the piece, sits on a raised stage with an old-fashioned looking microphone awaiting his words. Dressed in a dapper, three-piece vintage suit accompanied by a healthy beard and knowing smile he seems like the principal and us the pupils.

We don our blindfolds (they’re padded with foam for comfort and to block out the light) and wait with anticipation. What follows is a ninety-minute recording interspersed with Clark’s live narration. The story is a dystopian nightmare of a man called Jack. Set in 2056, the world’s population lives in tiers of society in which they work to gain credits that can upgrade them to the next level of lifestyle. Everything is computer automated – sleeping, going to the bathroom, walking on the street – everything. It’s like a cross between The Hunger Games, Golem and Black Mirror.

The story itself is not particularly original, with its outcome easy to guess early on; and it could do with a nice chunk of editing. What’s most impressive is the surround sound in which you feel entirely immersed and, not unlike the immersive soundscape in Complicite’s current offering at the EIF, does induce an almost dreamlike state. Spatial sound director Chris Timpson has created an incredibly vibrant experience, with a nuanced soundscape from composer Buster Cottam and sound designer Steve Fanagan.  Every sound zooms past your ears, and surrounds your senses. I’m keen to find out what the company creates next, and hope that the experience can be just as detailed and integral as the notable surround sound.

I have a bone to pick with Ponydance. They are single-handedly responsible for the horrific 90s Bloodhound Gang hit Animal going round in my head for the last 24 hours. You know the one – ‘You and me baby ain’t nothing but mammals so let’s do it like they do on the Discovery channel’. This ‘classic’ opens the company’s short stint at the Fringe, performed with aplomb by Donal Scullion and his raucous all-male band. Three women proceed to grind their way hilariously through the misogynistic (supposedly satirical) song, stripping to leopard-print pants and humping each other, their microphone stands, and the band members. Late night comedy eat your heart out – Ponydance will wipe the floor with you.

Their hour-long show is a series of sketches, the band stoically performing original tunes and re-interpretations (of Patti Smith, The Jackson Five, and Eric Murello, amongst others) as the three ladies and one gent of Ponydance wildly interpret the beats, drawing on pop culture, dance gags, and general silliness. Certain sections are more successfully subversive or impressive than others. A sequence in which the women carry the lead singer around the stage, balancing him in a variety of compromising and genuinely challenging positions, is a highlight. It’s funny, impressive (the singer doesn’t drop a note) and a clever comment on both the male lead in popular music, and the beautiful women who adorn him.

However, although a high-octane response to a Wham! classic draws laughter, its attempt to combat people’s view of the male dancer as gay feels hackneyed and old-fashioned. Similarly, a tennis sequence in which a drummer creates the sound of the ball as the two dancers mime a match is too long and doesn’t push the joke far enough. But it’s all good non-family fun. The performers’ irreverent charm and sheer commitment can’t help but make you smile and not take life too seriously for a little while. And the girls get their own back on the misogyny. The band get to twerk and grind for the playful pleasure of the women – ‘You and me baby ain’t nothing by mammals’… It’s still going round in my bloody head.

How will you die? Before walking in to see the Unlimited Theatre production of Am I Dead Yet?, an usher hands each audience member a card that asks this question. These cards, later used in the show, set the tone for an hour of curiosity, chilling episodes (of many kinds), music, and fun, all coming together in a brave investigation of death.

Writers and performers Chris Thorpe and Jon Spooner strike a perfect chord as they toggle between joking, singing, inviting a guest to teach us how to perform CPR properly, and recounting vivid stories about moments before, during, and after death. But is dying really so straightforward? Thorpe and Spooner investigate a few additional stages that force questions about the mechanism of dying that propose a complex and mysterious process, constantly evolving in ways we may not fully understand.

One of their central stories circles around a girl who is playing unsupervised on ice outside her home. She falls through the ice, and presumably has died, until the story takes a turn for the unbelievable. We dive into the reaches of medical advancement, and are challenged to view the starting and stopping of life as something that is more changeable than we might otherwise imagine.

Unlimited have a successful track record of bringing scientific and philosophical material to the theatrical table in their productions and Thorpe and Spooner tell duologues with the kind of exquisite rapport that marks the long partnership of two tried and true pros. They have the audience in the palm of their hand immediately, and they never let go. They get goofy, but only enough to put us at ease, before bringing us face-to-face with challenging and dark questions that we often go to great lengths to avoid. The show’s press materials state that we don’t talk about death often enough, and we ought to. I can’t imagine a more perfect way of bringing that conversation to the table.