What would you do if everyone in the world hated you? Would you run? Would you fight? Or would you try to make them laugh? Donald Robertson has no mates and he isn't funny. But with guidance from his new mentor Gary, he hopes that this is all about to change. Donald Robertson Is Not A Stand Up Comedian is a darkly comic coming of age story that explores the need to belong and deconstructs the brutal role that humour can play in society.

What would I do if I met him? I'd prob'ly kiss his feet. I'd prob'ly kiss his big banana feet. If you don't know who Billy Connolly is, ask the people of Scotland. And if you want to know about the people of Scotland, ask them about Billy Connolly. Over the course of four years, Gary and a team of story gatherers went all over the country with their dictaphones speaking to people about the Big Yin. Many of them were experts, many his biggest fans, many delighted to recount the time they met, if only for a brief moment, for many he is the greatest of all time. But no matter what they thought, no one was short of things to say about him. Gary then took this huge collection of moving and hilarious tales and turned them into Dear Billy, a joyous piece of theatre celebrating the Big Yin and what he means to us. The production was written and performed by Gary McNair and directed by Joe Douglas. National Theatre of Scotland originally toured the production around Scotland in 2023. This edition was published to coincide with the second National Theatre of Scotland tour and subsequent run at Edinburgh Fringe Festival from May-August 2024.

This book argues that Scottish theatre has, since the late 1960s, undergone an artistic renaissance, driven by European Modernist aesthetics. Combining detailed research and analysis with exclusive interviews with ten leading figures in modern Scottish drama, the book sets out the case for the last half-century as the strongest period in the history of the Scottish stage. Mark Brown traces the development of Scottish theatre’s Modernist revolution from the arrival of influential theatre director Giles Havergal at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow in 1969 through to the advent of the National Theatre of Scotland in 2006. Finally, the book contemplates the future of Scotland’s theatrical renaissance. It is essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary theatre and/or the modern history of live drama in Scotland.

What are the odds of living an extraordinary life? This is the story of one boy’s granddad who won a fortune betting on the 1966 World Cup and, when diagnosed with cancer, gambled it all on living to see the year 2000. An intergenerational tale of what we live for and what we leave behind. Gary McNair and director Gareth Nicholls return to the Traverse after last year's award-winning, fivestar showDonald Robertson Is Not A Stand-Up Comedian.

When Helen Daniels from Neighbours died, Robert shut his door on the world. And he's not opened it since. Now his only connection to the outside world is through his younger sister Isla, who looks after them both whilst their father is away in Ibiza on 'business'. With only a strange menagerie of creatures (including an iguana called Scott and a corn snake called Charlene) to keep them company, each day looks pretty much the same as the last – until their quiet lives are interrupted by a visit from Jessica, a benefit assessor, determined to prove that Robert is fit for work. But Jessica soon realises that one size certainly does not fit all, as she suddenly stumbles across a secret about Robert that catapults her head first into a universe of infinite possibilities. Merging biting social commentary and fantasy in unexpected ways, How to Disappear is a pitch-black comedy which gives a voice to those who often go unheard.

Northern Ireland, 1989. A farmhouse window smashes, and rebellious Fianna Devlin crashes back into the life of her pious sister Alannah. Together for the first time in years, when they're forced to confront their tyrannical father's hideous legacy, all hell breaks loose. Fuelled by Taytos, gin, 80s tunes and a chainsaw, Meghan Tyler's surreal Crocodile Fever is a grotesque black comedy celebrating sisterhood whilst reminding us that the pressure cooker of The Troubles is closer than we imagine.

It’s 1997. You’re 11. You’re sad, lonely and scared of doing anything that would get you singled out by the hopeless, angry people in your hometown. One day you see a man on telly. He’s mumbling, yet electrifying. He sings: 'I am human and I need to be loved, just like everybody else does'. You become obsessed with him. You write to him. A lot. Letters to Morrissey is the third in a trilogy of often darkly comic works drawing on the joys and struggles of growing up in working class Scotland. Fringe First Award Winner 2017.

"I'm in love with a man from Dundee Though he lived 100 years or so before me He was a poet He was aware of this" A tragic comedy, McGonagall's Chronicles charts the true life story of the worst poet of all time: William McGonagall. With wit, candour and warmth, Gary McNair tries to understand how McGonagall could be so bad at what he did, and gets to the heart of the dilemma that surrounds his legend – is it okay for us to laugh at someone's obvious and relentless failings?

It’s the future; just like now, but a bit more... well, shitey. Jim and Agnes have worked hard their whole lives and now Agnes needs a life-saving operation. With the NHS as we know it a thing of the past, they must take matters into their own hands in this darkly comic tale showing the lengths people go to for life and love.

In August 1947, an émigré Austrian opera impresario launched the Edinburgh International Festival of Music and Drama to heal the scars of the Second World War through a celebration of the arts. At the same time, a socialist theatre group from Glasgow and other amateur companies protested their exclusion from the festival by performing anyway, inventing the concept of 'fringe' theatre. Now the annual celebration known collectively as the Edinburgh Festival is the largest arts festival in the world, incorporating events dedicated to theatre, film, art, literature, comedy, dance, jazz and even military pageantry. It has launched careers – from Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in Beyond the Fringe to Phoebe Waller-Bridge with Fleabag – mirrored the political and social mood of its times, shaped the city of Edinburgh around it and welcomed a huge all-star cast, including Orson Welles, Grace Kelly, Yehudi Menuhin and Mark E Smith's The Fall and many many more. This is its story.