It's hell out there, in the "dating subculture". And if you think you don't know what that is, Love Is The Drug (City Arts Centre, until Saturday) will soon put you straight. Everyone - married, separated, semi-detached or single - will wince with recognition at some point during this fresh, witty and polished dramatisation of the eternal search for love.

Devised by the young Drogheda company, Calipo, whose members have emerged from a youth theatre background, the two-hour show is steeped in video, film and club culture, with a bouncing soundtrack, confidently used. The staged action is extended and commented on by filmed clips of the actors, presented on a huge wall of video screens. But this show doesn't patronise young people (under-25s) with the assumption that they won't go to the theatre unless it's disguised as cinema; the multi-media approach here is genuinely inventive.

In a fast-moving, episodic style, filmed snippets of advice from a dating agency are inter-cut with the play's four cleverly interwoven narrative strands, performed with energy and humour, and excellently directed by Darren Thornton, who also plays an agony uncle desperately in need of some of his own advice.

Typical scenes flash by, from the boy asking the girl at the delicatessen counter out for a date: "I'm actually quite nice and normal when you get to know me"; to the couple who, after years together, decide to get married and are wracked with "pre-nuptial tension"; to classic male/female exchanges in bed in the small hours - she, desperate: "we need to talk". He, bemused: "OK, what would you like to talk about?"

In pubs, gyms, clubs and bars, separately and together, these young men and women struggle to find a way through the conditioning, the media images, the expectations, the euphoria, the confusion, disappointment, rejection and pain of relationships. And, above all, the hope, against all the odds.

The Fringe festival continues until Saturday, but this column is stopping here. After almost three weeks of inevitably variable shows, it's good to be able to close on an enthusiastic note, welcoming the work of a company (Calipo) that represents a future source of life-blood for the Fringe: the flourishing regional youth theatre scene.

With £52,000 more at the festival's disposal than it had last year, it's not surprising that this year's offerings were a huge improvement on previous years, in production values especially. Until this year, performances rather than direction and script have been the highlight of the Fringe, with a preponderance of one-man shows providing a showcase for actors. While solo shows featured heavily again this year, there was more evidence of the badly needed contribution of directors, and some memorable writing also.

The more discriminating selection process has paid off, with about 25 fewer shows than last year and the elimination of some of the more egregiously unsuitable venues. There has also been a welcome attempt to stretch, and interrogate, the definition of Fringe theatre, through the inclusion of such ambitious, expensive and polished productions as SITI's Bob and The Machine's Purgatory.

These productions, and The Project's strong programme, which included Sarah Kane's Crave, Johnny Hanrahan's Craving and Compagnie Yun Chane's Couleurs de Femmes suggest that the Fringe is not only there to accommodate small-scale, low-budget shows, but is a much broader church, embracing what could loosely be classified as formally adventurous, independent theatre. Long may it live.

With no claims to being comprehensive, the shortlist below selects a handful of the best Fringe shows reviewed here, i.e. the most engaging and enjoyable, and the best directed, written and performed.

1. Car Show (Corn Exchange, Meeting House Square) 2. Kaos Master and Margarita (Kaos Theatre UK, City Arts Centre) 3. The Starving (Open House/ Iomha Ildanach, The Crypt) 4. Love Is The Drug (Calipo, City Arts Centre) 5. White Rabbit Cowboys (White Rabbit Cowboy Productions, Scotland, International Bar) 6. Couleurs de Femme (Compagnie Yun Chane, Project @ the Mint) 7. A Most Notorious Woman (Belfast Theatre Company, The Crypt)

The Fringe Information Office is in Arthouse, Curved Street, Temple Bar. The Fringe phone number is: 01-605 6833 and information is available on these websites: www.fringefest.com and www.dkm.ie/events

Members of the Calipo Theatre Company in Love is the Drug, at the City Arts Centre.