THEATRE: Smirnoff Underbelly (venue 6)

FIRE, explosions, gunshots, chainsaws, a scantily-clad lady, a unicycling maniac, a flame-shooting 18-inch prosthetic penis and the most perverse Big Top music of all time make Rocket and Roxie’s a fantastically absurd adult circus experience.

Our ringleader Rocket Johnny, who stuck his head in a toaster as a boy and hasn’t yet managed to peel it off, lives by tho motto “danger be damned”. Aided by his gorgeous sequinned hotpants-wearing assistant Roxanne Rolls-read: sex on rollerskate wheels-he sets out on a series of harrowing stunts that tend to go tragic-comically wrong and usually end up setting him or someone close to him alight.

Set to a deranged musical backdrop of circus standards that sounds as if Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails fame produced them, Johnny wrestles in a doghouse with the Hounds of Hades, drinks gasoline so he can “piss fire” and even tries to ride to the moon aboard a pogo stick.

His feats of daring are interspersed with bizarre acts from his circus cohorts. Tom Comet comes reeling onto the stage wielding an acetylene torch atop a six-foot-high unicycle, coming perilously close to the audience before “lighting one of his farts”, which shoots a 20-foot flame across the stage. The drooling madman juggles chainsaws, can balance a lawnmower with his teeth and rarely leaves the stage without a bang. Ernie of the Danger Be Damned Orchestra teaches the audience how to make a musical instrument out of a tampon applicator and has it sounding like a pan flute.

Then there’s the adorably hapless Roxie, who can barely keep her balance on her skates and constantly finds herself in trouble. No woman has looked as sexy as Roxie when playing the ukulele since Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot.

The lunatics of the Daredevil Opera Company have created a highly imaginative and obscenely hilarious pyrotechnic spectacle. Outrageously good fun.

Paul Rhodes

THE grisly scar on his wrist hinted at previous failure, but chainsaw juggler Tom Comet succeeded in his world record bid in Edinburgh yesterday.
A spellbound audience watched the Canadian throwing and catching three running chainsaws on the Princess Street Gardens stage.
They had already seen each of the blades slice through a plank of wood with ease and chop a melon in two - proving the danger was real.
Three Marshals, including Bill Ferguson - a juggler with 22 year's experience, also looked on in the heat to certify the world record attempt and count the number of times the saw went into the air.
Cuban Rafael Calros

Rodrigeuz Bove, who was the title holder, managed 42 throws when he juggled chainsaws to enter the Guinness Book of Records last October.
In his first bid to shatter this achievement yesterday, Mr Comet reached 22 tosses before one saw thudded to the floor. But with a 500-strong crowd behind him, the 30-year old asked for the lights to be lowered and tried again, this time reaching 44 throws to enthusiastic applause.
Afterwards, still shaking from the daredevil stunt he said: "I really wanted to get it the first time.
"I was worried I would be too tired for a second attempt.

Of burns sustained through a different stunt, was first challenged to juggle three chainsaws by a musician called Paul Weir, also involved in the Fringe Production.
For seven years he had been juggling a running chainsaw, an egg and a bowling ball together but accepted this dare.
It was the first time Mr Comet who has toured with the notorious Jim Rose Circus Sideshow and performed for Madonna in New York, has taken part in the Edinburgh Festival.
His show, put on by the Daredevil Opera Company, is at the Underbelly until August 10.

HELEN PUTTICK