Manipulate festival: candyfloss puppets and cabaret Anna Karenina

“We were worried you were expecting it to be serious. When did you realise it was funny?” asked Matija Solce at the post-show Q&A (he is director, performer, writer, puppeteer and accordionist with the Czech-Slovak-Slovene-Russian theatrical folk music group, Fekete Seretlek). From my left, a voice piped up: “Oh, I knew straight away!” Given that the inspiration for the company’s hit production, Kar, is Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, an emphasis on comedy wasn’t something easily anticipated. However, the opening scene with an accordion-playing corpse lying on a bier, smoking a cigarette and refusing to die today (“Maybe tomorrow”) was an indication that this was not going to be a straightforward story adaptation.

What followed was a cabaret-cum-fantastical puppet show, delivered by five multitalented performers, in which reality was transformed through the combination of their actions and the audience’s imaginations (Anna represented by a wine glass; her lover Count Vronsky by a bottle, with shot glasses for legs, taking part in a horse race – just one small example.) Co-produced by Studio Damúza, from Czechia, the performance was, indeed, funny; also astonishing, touching and death-defying.

Astonishment is a keynote of Edinburgh’s annual Manipulate festival (this is the 19th). Smaller and shorter than its summer siblings, it attracts a similarly eclectic, international mix of performers and audiences. This year’s artists, from more than 25 countries, are offering half a dozen premieres; a giant , illuminated octopus puppet appearing around the city in free pop-up performances; animated films; visual theatre; and puppetry in the widest interpretation of those genres.

In Coffee With Sugar? KMZ Kollektiv, from Germany, spin candyfloss into a child-size puppet and work it into a mask, to the accompaniment of live music from Yahíma Piedra Cordova (vocals, electronics, percussion and piano). Using projections, live film, coffee beans and sugar, the writer, co-director and performer Laia Ribera Cañénguez, draws on her own experiences of growing up between El Salvador and Germany to explore the personal and global effects of trade and colonialism. An imaginative and affecting narrative.

Photograph by Brtnicky.com/pablohassmann