I’m not sure that there can be much better in life than watching a clown who looks one minute away from an epic breakdown warbling out cabaret classics in a deep velvety baritone, whilst a montage of film clips in adoration of Kevin Costner plays in the background…

Lets Go! contains all of this, plus some spectacularly awkward and hilarious elements of audience interaction, and the most painstakingly lengthy coffee break I’ve ever seen. The Assembly’s Piccolo wooden circus tent is the ideal setting for this show, a relatively intimate semi-round space that seems to be just crying out for some clowning to take place within it.

Everything in this show is carefully structured to seem as shambolic as possible, whilst being anything but, from the audience’s entrance to see a coughing, scratching, drinking clown on stage, to Puddles’ laboured movements between each song. The skill of performer Mike Geier in presenting such a world-weary, sometimes bewildering but instantly likeable character is phenomenal. There was real humour in the juxtaposition between the slick seasoned artiste presented in the delivery of the songs, sung with breath-taking skill and confidence, and the seemingly insecure limping and muttering performer who emerged between numbers, needing frequent breaks to slowly sip his coffee and chew a never-ending piece of gum.

Puddle’s appeal is in the way in which his material references and deconstructs some of the best-known conventions of clowning; the popular notion of a morose figure being hidden behind a smiling clown’s mask is blown apart – Puddles is morose the whole time, and in fact, revels in it! The use of silence, gesture and physicality to communicate are also fully explored.

Audience members are persuaded to join Puddles on stage and participate in ever more ridiculous action such as repeatedly reading out lines from Costner’s films or spontaneous karaoke, all through very subtle use of gesture or facial expression on Puddles’ part. There is a clear nod to the influence of mass and social media here too, Puddles himself being a very popular character, cited as having over 20 million YouTube views. Many of his songs are accompanied by the kind of clips made popular by sites such as Facebook (dogs in hats, robots falling over) and we are encouraged to take photos during the set, and afterwards, with Puddles himself. This is a clever framing device, allowing a sense of mass appeal and engagement with an act that is actually quite subversive and in many aspects, enticingly unique.

This is a deeply affecting, highly realistic and immersive production. The action of this incredibly intense two-hander exploring the sex trade takes place entirely in a car driven round the suburbs of Edinburgh by an actor, with one other actor in the car, plus only two audience members as passengers. This is itself obviously highly unusual and initially actually quite scary (in a good way!), even for a seasoned contemporary theatre-goer; you are asked to relinquish control entirely to the performers, placing your safety in their (I’m sure very carefully risk-assessed!) hands.

We are being driven by Tom, beautifully played by  actor and co-writer Hayden Munt as an abrasive man in his early twenties, complete with bristling aggression, stained tracksuit and the kind of cold dead eyes that you want to avoid when you meet them in the rear-view mirror. His girlfriend Jess is his powerless passenger, perfectly presented by Sophia Luu as being weak and vulnerable and desperate to engage Tom in idle talk about her far-flung dreams for their supposedly rosy future. Because I know that this production explores the plight of those forced into sex work, the marketing complete with delicate trigger warnings, there is something tragically futile in her soliloquising on marble kitchen worktops and matching accoutrements. Tom’s reactions, at first just dismissive and then increasingly hostile as we reach our first stop (and Jess’s first client) cause a sort of claustrophobia in the car that has me gasping for air. For though this is clearly fiction, the acting is so exceptionally realistic that my main urges as a passenger are primal fight or flight; to intervene or run away!

In post-show dialogue with the director and co-writer Patrick Wilson (who drives the audience members back to the venue to allow for a debrief), I discover that sections of the script are entirely improvised, using a heavily character-led Method approach, and this explains the actors’ extraordinarily accomplished use of timing, which fitted to perfection the unpredictable rhythms of the Edinburgh traffic. This was further enhanced via the confident use of silence, for we’ve all been in those tense car journeys which take place mid-argument, and this feeling was magnified tenfold here, with the odd raised eyebrow or angry glare spied in a mirror being enough to communicate the mood.

When we reach our second stop, an unknown ‘punter’s’ house, events begin to spiral dangerously out of control with breathtaking speed. This rapid escalation is, according to a social worker with whom I discussed the piece, entirely realistic, and in this aspect the company’s in-depth research has clearly paid off. Inevitably, the root of Tom’s anger lies in drug dependency, leading to him objectifying Jess out of a desperate need for a fix and to repay debts owed to his dealer. It is hard to entirely sum up the absolute disgust that I felt at Tom’s treatment of Jess, and how difficult it was to witness both his emotional and physical manipulation and abuse of her. The symbolism of this being a journey with an inevitably terrible end is poignantly underscored by the fact that we are all in a vehicle controlled entirely by him.

Whilst I felt it impossible to sympathise with Tom’s character, I did gain an insight into how cycles of dependency and poverty had led him here, and how as a result Jess was being forced to go along with the ever-more savage events. The piece really opened my eyes to how commonplace this kind of situation probably is; driving around the suburbs and pulling up outside random houses, I began to wonder if there were people nearby experiencing the same, knowing that statistically speaking it is entirely likely. In the debrief I learnt that the company’s aim was to raise awareness of this very fact, the prevalence of sex work and how quickly things can get out of control. Being in the role of ‘powerless’ passenger/observer is a deeply unsettling but I think vital one, both on the level of being able to experience such a raw and visceral piece, but also in prompting the notion in me that in real life I could be far more active in helping someone like Jess.

From the co-creators of the acclaimed puppet-theatre show Cell, In Our Hands is a gentle and almost hypnotic exploration of the issues around Cornish trawler fishing – the isolation, poverty and will to succeed that makes both the occupation and the performance itself one of increasingly high stakes and tension.

Smoking Apple’s aim here, as specified in the programme, was to make something innovative. To achieve this, they have created a piece which has a discernible performative language all of its own, the strong dramaturgical guidance of Red Threaders’ Gemma Williams being consistently visible. Communication throughout is often wordless, relying instead on the muttered calls of the trawler team to set the scene – an imaginative reflection of the ensemble work needed in such an arduous task. Combined with this is extensive use of wonderfully varied puppetry; paper becomes birds, tiny boats sail vast green fishing nets to symbolise long journeys, and there is excellent comic relief in the form of a persistent and perky seagull puppet, manipulated in to the jerky and startled movements familiar of its breed, and forever searching indignantly for its latest snack.

Our key characters of elderly trawlerman Alf and his son are illustrated through actors holding a simple head and a hand body piece each and using their own bodies to fully capture their characters’ physicality. This style lends a rhythmic and slightly other-worldly feel to the piece, underscored as it is with an almost constant soundtrack of sounds of the sea and atmospheric music. Once I had become familiar with the language of the production (and managed to damp down my inherent need for words!) I became entirely absorbed in it, rooting for protagonist Alf, the impoverished elderly fisherman who still has his dead wife’s voice on his answerphone and seems to be drowning in debts, caused in no small part by a dependency on drink to see him through the freezing lonely nights.

The device of conveying information via answerphone messages is frequently repeated, allowing for the communication of some exposition in a way which fits entirely with the narrative style. In this form, we discover that Alf’s (unnamed) son, working in PR in London and missing the sea, is desperate to help his father, if only Alf will let him.

There follows a sequence where Alf visits London, a more apt depiction of a fish being out of water being hard to imagine! There, his drinking escalates and a crisis point is reached from which there seems to be no resolution, imaginatively shown through an extended montage sequence, symbolising drink driving and a pressing need to return home. However, this is a piece ultimately full of hope, and it is this that really won me over. The pull of home is just as strong for Alf’s son, who eventually is able to use his PR skills to help revive Alf’s flagging business in the most satisfying way possible.

This incredibly accomplished performance merges multi-layered sound effects, music and dialogue in an intensely visceral exploration of humanity being pushed to the absolute limits. Given a set of headphones each, the audience enter to atmospheric and slightly disjointed music, and see five performer-musicians in place on stage. This simple headphone device lends a sense of intrigue to the piece, with each audience member experiencing it at once individually and also as part of a wider collective. It is perhaps due to this that I expected to be immersed in a viewing experience more promenade or active in nature; however this clearly wasn’t the aim of the work. Instead, I settled in to experiencing a detailed and sonically all-encompassing exploration of two closely connected narratives: the first about Yuri Gagarin’s inaugural space flight; and the second focusing on the arduous journey of a group of refugees desperate to reach Spain via Morocco. With the brutality and pain of a long desert journey, the group’s quest is very successfully presented as being every bit as daunting as Gagarin’s space flight. Perhaps even more so, equipped as they are with only a child’s inflatable dinghy to cross the vast stretch of ocean. The merging of these two stories really appealed to me. The vulnerable child refugee Sam repeatedly reassures  himself that the huge tumultuous sea that he must cross is ‘just lots and lots of water’, yet this water seems less navigable than the moon’s Sea of Desire, and my empathy for his undertaking was absolute. On the flipside, alone in his rocket, Yuri Gagarin has a strong network of support available to him, and is constantly asked how he is feeling, whilst the refugees must, of course, fend entirely for themselves.

There is huge skill in the musicianship here: through a synthesis of voices, guitar, accordion, looped sound effects, and drums the performers create a slick sound-world that makes the body pulse in time with the story. There is a wonderful moment of tension as Yuri’s rocket eventually takes off, the crashing crescendo and rising action juxtaposed against snippets of the refugees’ tale, stranded in their tiny boat as a huge liner approaches. The piece is very successful in unearthing the humanity in these tales, providing a hook for us to invest in these characters and their respective journeys. It is perfectly made for an audience who appreciate this style of audio-based performance; the visual elements are of course limited (in this case to some basic but effective projections). As a visual thinker, this was an element that I found initially challenging, despite understanding and respecting the premise of the piece. However, the layers of sound and the climatic feel of the action did absorb me for the most part, and the production without doubt achieved its aim in exploring the limits of human ambition and endurance in a manner that has universal resonance.