Guilt, BBC Two review - dark Scottish comedy starring Mark Bonnar and Jamie Sives

★★★ GUILT, BBC TWO Neil Forsyth's new drama gathers convicion and momentum after a slow start

Neil Forsyth's stylish drama gathers conviction and momentum after a slow start

“He was dying slowly. We just made it quick.” This is sharp-faced, menacing Max (Mark Bonnar: Catastrophe, Unforgotten, Line of Duty) to his sensitive brother Jake (Jamie Sives: Chernobyl, Game of Thrones, The James Plays). Jake is driving Max’s car on their way back from a wedding in Fife – Max is beside him, swigging champagne - and accidentally runs into and kills an old man in an Edinburgh suburb. Well, the old guy did have terminal pancreatic cancer, so that makes it OK, doesn’t it?

Edinburgh International Festival 2019: JARV IS review - Britpop legend still delivers

★★★★ EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL 2019: JARV IS Britpop legend still delivers

Pulp frontman brings expertly crafted songs and a tight, talented band to Leith Theatre

”Cunts Are Still”. Well, that got your attention, didn’t it? Not my words, merely the title of one of JARV IS’s new tracks. In case you didn’t get it, JARV IS is a play on words and the name of given to Pulp frontman and founder Jarvis Cocker’s latest outfit. Cocker still is releasing new material. He still is an exuberant and energetic performer. He still is wearing those glasses. And still is very good.

Edinburgh Fringe 2019 review: How Not to Drown

★★★★ HOW NOT TO DROWN Autobiographical refugee story feels like a boy's own adventure

Autobiographical refugee story feels like a boy's own adventure

Urgent, fast-paced, seemingly never pausing for breath, How Not to Drown is a real-life boy’s own adventure, an appeal for compassion towards refugees, and an interrogation of nationality and identity. That’s quite a mix for a show of 100 minutes.

Edinburgh International Festival 2019 review: Total Immediate Collective Imminent Terrestrial Salvation

★★★★ EDINBURGH FESTIVAL: TOTAL IMMEDIATE COLLECTIVE IMMINENT TERRESTRIAL SALVATION Messianic devotion and audience complicity in a slippery new work from Tim Crouch

Messianic devotion and audience complicity in a slippery new work from Tim Crouch

It’s the end of the world as we know it. At least according to Miles, scientist turned messiah, who lost his son in an accident at a frozen lake, and who experienced visions of an impending apocalypse in his subsequent coma.

He’s established a colony of believers (let’s not call it a cult) in South America, and we’re here to bear witness to the arrival of his estranged wife, intent on reclaiming their daughter back to civilisation.

Edinburgh International Festival 2019 review: Roots

★★★★ ROOTS Captivating and macabre, 1927's new show marks a partial return to their own origins

Captivating and macabre, 1927's new show marks a partial return to their own origins

A fat cat who gobbles up everything in sight. A king who tests his wife’s fidelity with increasingly horrific trials. A man whose flatmate is Poverty. It’s hard to ignore the scathing contemporary resonances in theatre company 1927’s sly, witty new Roots, getting its first European performances at the Edinburgh International Festival.