Dead Girls Rising at the Traverse Theatre Edinburgh

As a woman travelling home alone from this show I should have been afraid, very afraid.

For this powerful play is fizzing with anger against a violent society and and how some men treat women and girls.

But it can't be as bad as Maureen Lennon's script makes out, can it? It's almost misandrist; all men are misogynists. Even the token man is tied up, stabbed and disembowelled – just because he's a man.

But what saves Hull-based Silent Uproar's production from being a horror fest is the vibrant energy and pure entertainment provided by The Furies who are, they say, gods who have come back from the dead to hold men accountable for their crimes. They perform, in striking face art and clothes, as a three-piece band (with said token man as drummer) who tear apart the tyrannical history of male power through cabaret skits and, says the press release, Riot Grrrl-inspired punk songs (written by international punk artist Anya Pearson), which connect the journeys of two girls who are traumatised when one of their schoolmates is murdered.

The band members, Izzy Neish, Zoe West and Rebecca Levy, are empowering and worth the price of anyone's ticket for their music alone, let alone their acting skills, alongside Helen Reuben and Angelina Chudi, who convincingly act out the lives of Katie and Hannah from 13-year-olds to women in their late twenties still living in fear of men.

It's a compelling piece which men of a certain type should be made to watch. And I'll be taking extra care in future.

Dead Girls Rising is at the Traverse Theatre Edinburgh until May 23.

www.traverse.co.uk

Box Office: 0131 228 1404

It then continues touring:

May 25: Marsden Mechanics

May 26: The Cluntergate Centre, Horbury

May 31-June 1: Northern Stage Newcastle

June 3: Liverpool Arts Club

June 4-7: The Welly Hull

June 9: The Deaf Institute Manchester

June 10-11: Sheffield Theatres