Showing @ Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, Mon 22 Apr only

The day Lance Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles would have been the thirtieth birthday of David Walsh’s son John, who died in a cycling accident in 1995. Walsh’s story could be described as a tale of another lost boy. He tracked Armstrong from his 1993 interview with the ambitious young cyclist, where he came away admiring Armstrong’s drive and determination to overcome his hardscrabble life, through to the star’s mea-culpa with Oprah Winfrey last year.

Walsh is extremely honest – including about his own failings, but he spares most of his anger for the cycling bodies, sponsors, media outlets and other journalists who fell uncritically under the Armstrong spell and refused to believe Walsh’s story, even as evidence of doping mounted. The picture of Armstrong that emerges, is of a man with frightening self belief, backed by equally frightening self delusion. A man more than happy to ruin the reputation and career of others in order to protect his own – including testifying under oath that a team masseuse offered sexual favours.

Armstrong comes across as the poster boy of congnative dissonance, aware of his wrongdoing enough to lie, cheat and bully to hide it but believing entirely that if he’s doing it, it can’t be wrong. What shines through Walsh’s narrative, isn’t any vengeful glee at the fall of cycling’s demi-god but a sense of disappointment that it had to get so far and take so long before cycling accepted the truth and truly began to clean up it’s act. You also get the feeling, surprisingly, for a man who’s spent over fifteen years of his life focused on one individual, that Walsh is happy to let go and seems relieved to be able move on. Brought to the Lyceum by  the documentary film festival Edindocs,, no film accompanies Walsh’s book tour but the story of a particularly tenacious David taking on this seemingly unstoppable Goliath, has all the makings of a classic movie.