MY FAVOURITE favourite show of the Fringe so far, Horse of Jenin (⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑) by Alaa Shehada, was a sublime performance. There can’t be many performers who can glide effortlessly between humour and pathos the way Shehada does.

The titular horse, a giant artwork created in the early 2000s from the rubble of an Israeli bombing, and placed in the centre of town, is a vigil on Alaa’s youth. Through spoken word, mime and comedy, Shehada’s childhood memories become every bit as vibrant and nostalgic as a Ghibli movie.

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This is not the work of a preacher but a storyteller who paints a picture of occupation as both normal and horrific, a play whose politics are subtle, not blunt, and all the more effective for it. This year’s Fringe hit.

Presented and performed by Scottish-based Palestinian choreographer Farah Saleh, Balfour Reparations (⭑⭑⭑⭑☆) is part contemporary performance, part political seminar. It’s a show that combines interpretive dance, futurist video art and lots of audience participation. Indeed, while there’s fair warning of the latter, the show relies a little too much on this, even subjecting us to a post-show “How did you feel about this?” session that threatened to become every boring political meeting you’ve ever been to.

Still, this is on the whole a performance that is uplifting and hopeful and completely different from anything else at the Fringe. As one audience member said: “Art is a space where things that don’t yet exist can start to happen.”

Taking place at Portobello Town Hall, Welcome to The Fringe, Palestine was a full programme of Palestinian artists, from comedy to theatre, puppetry and music. Its very existence, carving out a space in an already crowded city, is a real testament to the will and talents of the local organisers and visiting performers.

On Thursday I popped down to see Harvest (⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑), a musical written and performed by Scottish-Palestinian Amira al-Shanti, with husband and arranger Gordon Robertson accompanying. It’s a work in progress, a public debut for the songbook stripped down to just vocals and piano with a simple story, loosely based on Al-Shanti’s own experiences.

The main character, Zahra, travels from Scotland to Palestine and encounters a world where the universal desires to build families and till the soil come face to face with a regime of apartheid. The songs range across subjects, with delicate poetry expressing love across borders: “I’ll hang my love on the moon so that its light can kiss you.”

Al-Shanti’s voice is stunning in its crystal clarity, and like magic conjures up a vision of the land where olives grow. While there’s certainly an idealism here at times, Harvest isn’t afraid to tackle politics of complicity and turn a critical lens on empire: “You wear your poppies at your heart while you tear our limbs and country apart.” Al-Shanti and Robertson hope that in the future Harvest can be a full scale production. I’ll be the first to buy a ticket.

The final show of Thursday night was Ahmed Tobasi’s And Here I Am (⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑). This was a coming-of-age story, growing up in Palestine, where the occupation is ever-present like “cosmic background radiation.” Despite the often brutal subject matter, Tobasi’s impish sense of humour is not a break from reality but a reflection of it.

The story tells how a local rival in the resistance suggests that the main character martyr himself for the cause, and is the kind of darkly comic story that is probably more true to life than many of us would admit. And Here I Am is physical and thoughtful, a feast for the senses and the mind, and willing to probe and meditate on the contradictions of Palestinian resistance, whilst simultaneously affirming the very right to be resistant.

Performed entirely in Arabic, with English subtitles, Tobasi’s physical charisma and well-honed theatrical instincts have the audience captivated for the full 75 minutes.

Horse of Jenin runs until August 25, Pleasance Dome. Tickets: edfringe.com.
Balfour Reparations runs until August 25, Summerhall. Tickets: edfringe.com.
Harvest, run ended.
And Here I Am, run ended.