“Jamie Vartan’s set suggests an institution: sports-court markings on floor, glass-windowed doors; incongruously, a drum kit. When John (Domhnall Gleeson) enters, a young man in pale-blue pyjamas, hesitant of demeanour, we get the impression he could be a patient. He sits in a makeshift booth and, donning headphones, is interrogated by an invisible questioner, who asks how long he has been there and why”

“Medicine takes place in the gymnasium of a psychiatric hospital. There, in-patient John Kane finds himself surrounded (on designer Jamie Vartan’s excellent set) by the detritus of the previous night’s staff party..........Medicine may well turn out to be the finest theatre production in Edinburgh this season”

“superb production....a magnificent cast”

“It centres on the experience of John Kane, a patient at a residential psychiatric institution, brilliantly played by Domhnall Gleeson as a put-upon Everyman. In a room of the hospital that, incongruously, has been used for a staff party, John retells his story as what he calls a "Testimony", an attempt to engage with his past to see if he can qualify for some sort of release, though perhaps its real purpose is rather darker. He is helped by two performers, both called Mary, who act out the scenes as he tells them, while an unspeaking jazz drummer adds atmosphere through his music......it's chilling, powerful & unforgettable”

“The design team – particularly Teho Teardo, who wrote the score, Jamie Vartan, who designed the set, and Adam Silverman, who designed the lighting – take full advantage of the cavernous Black Box Theatre, making big choices that fill the space, drawing us into often awful intimacy. Seán Carpio’s onstage drumming adds to the effect, heightening the absurdity and the unsettled feeling.”

“Teho Teardo's compositions might surface only fleetingly, but they are essential and exquisite. As are the larger details of Jamie Vartan's set, Adam Silverman's lighting, Helen Atkinson's sound and Joan O'Clery's costumes. Throughout, there's ongoing commentary on theatre and theatricality....Medicine never tasted this good.”

“John shambles on to Jamie Vartan’s perfectly realised set, which still bears the scars of last night’s over-exuberant staff party. As he clears up the mess of spent streamers and flaccid balloons, an institution for the mentally disturbed emerges, complete with a shuttered nurses’ station...........Gleeson makes it clear that John has been here before – although the way he picks up the detritus makes it ambiguous as to whether he was involved in its creation. This is his domain and he’s supposed to be sitting at a curtained-off communications desk, with headphones and microphone.”

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“The best medicine anyone can hope for”