There’s a lot going for Libby McArthur’s new show. It has some great gags, a convincing performance and a clear moral about not judging others, and about how easy it is to slip into poverty and imprisonment. Yet, despite all this I found my attention wandering, not wholly taken in. We hear the travails of a fictionalised McArthur, an actress “aff the telly”, who ends up in court over unpaid parking tickets. The characters she meets in the holding cell are all sensitively drawn, and the protagonist’s journey is sincere. Yet her glib, head in the sand naivety never quite convinces, and the attempts to inject gritty realism felt laboured and cliched. The resolution, therefore, felt flat and unearned.

Gilded Balloon Teviot, until 27 Aug.
tw rating 2/5 | [Andy Leask]