Up: Violin vs Football, French Institute in Scotland ★★★★★

The gag – and it’s about as pitch-black a gag as you could imagine – is there in the title. Three African American guys hang out, shoot the breeze, chew the fat, discussing everything from pretty girls to who the best blues musician is. They bicker, disagree, pass on nuggets of wisdom and even sing an out-of-tune song or two, seemingly just to pass the time. But constantly interrupting their impromptu discussions are tortured, awkward movements, as the three lynched bodies hang together by their necks in deathly silence.

If we get lost or confused in the story he’s about to tell us, writer/performer Sam Ward explains, we shouldn’t worry: it all comes together in the end. There’s an implicit warning there, and it proves entirely justified: what Ward goes on to deliver is a breathless, high-velocity dash through an ever more complicated and convoluted narrative that dares us to drop our attention and lose the flow.

Linus Karp Was Hit With An Umbrella, Underbelly, Bristo Square ★★★★

Populist theatre really is a terrible flirt. You know the type of thing I mean: cheeky pursed lips, making eyes at the audience, strutting with a provocative wiggle. No need for subtle signals. No need for hidden depths.

Supposing: ★★★★★

Sally fell down a hole outside the local theatre. Since then, things have changed. She just… knows things that other people don’t. But rather than being a source of joy, help or hope, her new abilities feel more like a curse.

It’s been 35 years since Tony Kushner’s two-play, multi-hour epic gay soap opera-cum-spiritual meditation was first unleashed on the world in Los Angeles and San Francisco. And it’s been 18 years since director Ivo van Hove unveiled his own raw, stripped-back production with what was then Toneelgroep Amsterdam, now Internationaal Theater Amsterdam.

Andrew O’Hagan’s 2020 novel Mayflies had a memorable television treatment in 2022, and a brand new stage adaptation – to which the writer has given his blessing – is one of the Fringe’s 2026 hot tickets. It’s immediately clear why.

An Ulster playwright who insists she's British, a childish American star hung up on Irish Catholic tropes - played by a very grown up actor, Matthew Broderick - and a theatre director who's not as woke as he claims meet in the director's London apartment on the eve of rehearsals. With hilarious results? At times, yes. and Belfast-born David Ireland knows how to structure his three-hander even if you see the ground being laid for the ultimate crisis.

Cathy ★★★

Iconic Scottish actor Elaine C Smith towers over writer/director Eilidh Loan’s snarling, acid-sour comedy at the Traverse Theatre. Judging by chat in the hectic pre-show queue, getting the chance to see her in the flesh was a big attraction for many punters. And Smith was central, too, to Loan’s creative process: the character of Cathy is inspired by the writer’s own grandmother, who insisted that Smith should play her.