Edinburgh festival: Great music in theatre is all too rare

guardian.co.uk: "I can't remember the last time I saw a piece of theatre that used music so wisely, so well and to such poleaxingly brilliant effect. I don't say this lightly: I've genuinely been racking my brain for examples. Simon Stephens's Harper Regan was one of the most powerful things I've seen on stage this year, yet the music was remarkably bland, even at the emotional crux of the piece, where the heroine silently sets breakfast - a poignant acknowledgement that she will return to her marriage - to the accompaniment of some cute but forgettable guitary cooing. John Tiffany's Bacchae at last year's Edinburgh, which shimmered with camp theatrical wit, at least until it came to the gruesomely low-grade gospel sung by the chorus. Or Kneehigh's A Matter of Life and Death, infectiously enjoyable until the weird bits of middle-class rap."