Wiping my Mother?s Arse, Traverse Theatre;<br></br> Ross Noble, Pleasance One;<br></br>Daniel Kitson, Pleasance Below;<br></br>Bedbound, Dublin Theatre Festival, Traverse Theatre;

Wiping my Mother?s Arse, Traverse Theatre;

The wilfully unsavoury title of Iain Heggie's new comedy signposts us toward the bodily-function-dominated world of its nursing-home setting, where the septuagenarian Andrene (Edith Macarthur) lives, enjoying the companionship of her camp care assistant, Larry (Eric Barlow), but pining for her long-absent son, Derek (Neil McKinven). With mental faculties mostly intact, apart from an iffy memory, she dreams that one day Derek will come back, take her out of there and give her some grandchildren.

And sure enough, the prodigal does return, with a new girlfriend, the mercurially obtuse Kath (Jill Riddiford), in tow and kids indeed in mind – only there's the small matter of his decidedly chequered past to be confronted first. The implicit comparison between Andrene's memory lapses and Derek's selectively whitewashed recollections is a telling one.

A splendid performance from Macarthur, by turns crankily imperious, sweetly cajoling and painfully confused, with Barlow a briskly effective foil, creates a healthy friction between humour and pathos, carried through in the capricious cut-and-thrust of Heggie's dialogue. McKinven and Riddiford's characters are less convincing, Kath inhabiting a credibility gap somewhere between naturalism and caricature, engendering a scepticism exacerbated by further holes in the drama's narrative and psychological fabric.

Sue Wilson

Ross Noble, Pleasance One;

Venue 15 (0131-228 1404), to 25 August, times vary

The first half-hour of Ross Noble's show is pure heaven, a psychedelic sojourn into the deepest recesses of his brain. Never mind that he begins a story and then starts another one in the middle – it's not the punchline we're after anyway. Each night, the tousle-haired Geordie marches fearlessly into unknown territory, ready to encounter whatever is thrown his way. Picking on the front row may be the oldest trick in the book, but with Noble it's a surefire way of spinning some gloriously surreal tales. The discovery that a woman at the front works for a paper company wouldn't normally be the most inspiring starting-point for a comic, but for Noble it's a gift. He imagines her slogging away in a broom cupboard, filling orders for wallpaper, writing-paper and, better still, litmus paper. Before you know it, he has invented a play called "The Litmus Diaries".

As I said, the first half is incredible, but things unravel during the second. His written work – and you can pick it out – is no match for the improvised material. There are 10 rambling minutes on the routine he would like to have performed on Popstars and more on an imaginary monkey. This has to be the first time I've wished a stand-up would forget his lines.

Fiona Sturges

Daniel Kitson, Pleasance Below;

Venue 33, 0131-556 6550, to 27 Aug, 8.45pm (9.45pm)

There's a not unreasonable school of thought that suggests that stand-ups should be prevented from performing until they've picked up some life knowledge worth imparting to an audience, perhaps at special work camps, which ought to knock some cockiness out of them. But the excellent young newcomer Daniel Kitson simply circumvents the issue by telling his story so far, and it's a strange and entertaining tale.

The bearded Yorkshireman may look like a real-ale drinker, but he prefers Ribena, and his show similarly confounds cliché, expecting recognition without asking us to identify directly. After all, how many of the crowd have ever been diagnosed with "clumsy child syndrome" (not an easily accepted excuse in Barnsley) or suffered for years from "blocking", a brutal form of stutter that is still sometimes audible? By choosing his progressive loss of innocence as a theme, from playground insults to present-day boot fetishism, one can't help but fear for Kitson's happiness when fame inevitably beckons, despite his uncanny resemblance to a Seventies Open University lecturer. If you've ever mumbled, "Bummers are always deaf", at a classmate (or boss) in the hope of eliciting the reply, "What?", you will adore this show.

Steve Jelbert

Bedbound, Dublin Theatre Festival, Traverse Theatre;

Venue 33 (0131-556 6550), 22.30 (23.30) to 27 Aug (not 9, 10)

On a dishevelled, child-sized bed, housed in a cell-like box, a young woman and her father spew out frantic torrents of words, desperately scrabbling for refuge in or at least a hold on the past, and perhaps to breach the wall of pain and bitterness between them.

Dad is the poor Irish boy made good through sheer force of will, and at the cost of all human warmth and kindness, his wife and daughter acquired simply to further his business ambitions – until the driven ruthlessness tips into violent débâcle. Stricken by polio at the age of 10, his daughter is as crippled physically as he is emotionally, his response to this perceived "shame" having been to wall her up inside the house and declare her dead. Wounded though she is, her will to survive remains as fierce as his, and she clings to sanity through words and memories.

This award-winning latest play by Enda "Disco Pigs" Walsh rigorously telescopes time and space into the tightest of confines, operating on multiple, interconnected levels, with performances of blistering intensity from Norma Sheahan and Liam Carney viscerally evoking the extremes of damage inflicted on people by life and each other, while still holding out the faint but resilient hope of redemption.

Sue Wilson

Venue 15 (0131-228 1404) to 12 Aug, 10.30pm (11.20pm)