Theatre review: 1%

Ah, the charm of Iain Heggie, Scottish playwright extraordinaire.

Star rating: ***

Venue: theSpace@Surgeon’s Hall (Venue 53)

Having discovered his gifts as anecdotalist via a series of lurid and brilliant Facebook posts about Glasgow street life, Heggie launched his career as a solo Fringe performer last year, with a slightly austere reworking of the material for a performance in the manner of a lecture; he wore, I seem to recall, a stern black polo-neck, and stood at a lectern with his script before him.

This time round, though, he experiments with a much more jolly and confiding performance style, wears a rather nice jacket, and perches on a stool sharing his tales with a wicked gleam in his eye.

The idea is that while most people walk on by when they see incidents of urban madness or despair breaking out, Heggie is one of the 1% who just can’t help stopping for a look, or even trying to intervene. And if most of the stories in this current collection are not new, they make a vastly amusing hour of late-night entertainment, delivered by one of Scotland’s most brilliant and unexpected storytellers.

Until today, 10:10pm.