With the sheer density of theatrical creations jostling for attention across Edinburgh’s festivals, there’s no shortage of arresting stagings, innovative visuals and powerful, memorable design. (Just take Cena Brasil Internacional’s shocking Tom at the Farm as one particularly epic, raw example.)

The Beautiful Future is Coming, Traverse Theatre ★★★★★

Say what you like about this year’s slimmer-than-usual Edinburgh International Festival, but when it has hit the spot, it has done so triumphantly. Nowhere has that so far been truer than in the piano playing, as this pair of concerts demonstrated. 

NYO2 is a group of dazzlingly talented (and terrifyingly young-looking) 14-17 year olds from the USA, one of Carnegie Hall’s three national youth ensembles, and with a focus on supporting young musicians from communities that are under-represented in the arts. This Edinburgh International Festival concert marked their European debut, and they’re doing a miniature residency in Edinburgh that, in another concert, involves them playing alongside some talented young Scots. 

Lost Lear, Traverse Theatre ★★★★

A rehearsal room; a tense preparation session for a production of King Lear, provocatively gender-swapped; a troublesome diva in the title role; and a near-silent understudy barely able to contribute.

You could distinctly hear the murmurs of recognition from the Edinburgh audience – responding to knowing mentions of the city’s Leith and Morningside areas, the building of Royal Bank of Scotland’s immense Gogarburn HQ, the institution’s towering greed and ambition – during James Graham’s epic new history of RBS, its single-minded CEO Fred Goodwin and the 2008 financial crisis that was unveiled at the Edinburgh International Festival.

Rhys Darby, Pleasance Courtyard ★★★★

Rhys Darby, the New Zealand actor and comic best known as Murray Hewitt in Flight of the Conchords, is back at the Fringe after nearly a decade away with The Legend Returns.

I’m Ready to Talk Now, Traverse Theatre ★★★★

Alright Sunshine, Pleasance Dome ★★★★★

"When I was your age, I worked in a corrugated cardboard factory!" is a phrase my father was fond of telling me as a teenager, presumably in an attempt to extol the virtues of a good Presbyterian work ethic.