Highlight #12 - Rendition Monologues

One of the finest things about the various Edinburgh-based festivals happening at this time of year is that there's space and opportunity for shows that cater to every taste and form of expression.

The Edinburgh Festival of Spirituality & Peace is a particularly commendable example of that diversity, featuring a programme of drama, music, dance and events which celebrate the human spirit - or highlight crimes against it.

One such example is Rendition Monologues, a four-man piece of verbatim theatre which retells real-life, first-hand accounts of victims of the CIA's 'rendition' program. That practice, yet to be rescinded, allows the agency to transport known or suspected terrorists for imprisonment in countries where torture is still a recognised form of interrogation.

Rendition Monologues interweaves the actual words of four victims of this program -including Binyam Mohamed, a former UK resident - in what promises to be an hour of moving, hard-hitting and intensely personal theatre.

The show is a co-production between iceandfire theatre, a group who specialise in exploring and publicising human rights issues through performance; and Reprieve UK, a legal charity organisation who provided the transcripts which make up Rendition Monologues' script. A representative from Reprieve UK will be conducting a 30-minute Q&A session after each performance of this show, allowing you to delve deeper into some of the issues and facts behind what you will have just witnessed.

Whatever your political viewpoint and stance on the "War on Terror", Rendition Monologues provides a platform for voices that would otherwise perhaps never have been heard. For that alone, it deserves attention.

Rendition Monologues runs from the 17th - 23rd August at St John's Church as part of the Edinburgh Festival of Spirituality & Peace. £8 full, £5 concesssion.