Butt Kapinski @ Pleasance Dome

Butt Kapinski is a hard-boiled private dick trying to solve a grisly murder despite a curious lack of decision-making skills. Left or right? Up or down? He’s not sure, so it’s lucky he’s surrounded by people happy to take the choice out of his hands in a choose-your-own-adventure film noir.

The first stroke of brilliance is that the audience interaction doesn’t end there. With an 8.10pm slot, Deanna Fleysher (Butt) is guaranteed a well-watered, active Edinburgh audience, but that doesn’t stop her taking risks, throwing roles open to confident punters keen to get a laugh of their own. It’s a high-risk, high-reward strategy, but it pays off every time, because Fleysher is a master of bringing even the most determined show-offs back under her control.

She does this with a committed performance that earns uproarious laughter from her first entrance and only gets funnier as time passes. She’s the star, the director, the screenwriter and, thanks to an ingenious costume, the lighting team of each one-off story, yet each scene in this chaotic, seedy, absurd tale flows seamlessly into the next. It’s a tour de force, vocally and physically impressive, with quick-witted improvisations to match. Only the ending is incongruous, but by then the delightful madness of the whole endeavour should have you out of your seat and rushing to the stage, not the exit.

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Butt Kapinski, Pleasance Dome (Ace Dome), 2-27 Aug (not 9, 14 & 21), 8.10pm, £6-£10