It was an audacious thing to do. How could a shaggy-haired entertainer get away with putting on a show about the most beloved shaggy-haired entertainer in the country? In his tribute to Billy Connolly, Gary McNair brilliantly pulled it off. His trick in Dear Billy was not to embody the comedian (although he shares something of Connolly’s demeanour and love of a good yarn) but rather to reflect what the Big Yin meant to Scottish people.

Staged for National Theatre Of Scotland and revived after its initial sell-out success, Dear Billy was a joyful collage of voices which, in all their everyday surrealism, created a moving sense of how much Connolly means to us. It was funny, of course, but also touching.

Funny too was McNair’s second Edinburgh Fringe collaboration with fellow writer Kieran Hurley, returning to Hammerston High School to catch up with Stevie and Max, the youngsters we first met in Square Go. Standing for ‘virgin lips’, VL was another raucous comedy performed by Scott Fletcher and Gavin Jon Wright about the trials and torments of growing up male in an aggressive playground culture. All this in a year that began with McNair’s witty and clever adaptation of Jekyll & Hyde, excellently performed by Forbes Masson at Edinburgh’s Lyceum. 

Find out who hit the ninth spot on our list. 
Read entries 49-11 here.