JAMES HOGG’S Confessions of a Justified Sinner (Queen’s Hall) is deservedly a cult novel. Written at the beginning of the 19th century and set at the beginning of the previous century, it deals with the story of a certain Robert Wringhim who is convinced by doppelganger Gil-Martin that he is a member of the elect, chosen by God for heaven and therefore unable to sin whatever he does.

And what he does is murder.

But the fascination of the book is in what we don’t know.

Who is Gil-Martin? The devil? An evil twin? Part of Wringhim’s own mind? Or perhaps it’s an early exposition of the duality inherent in Scottish fiction from Robert Louis Stevenson to Alasdair Gray?

While the novel operates on different levels, this production by Untitled Projects adds further layers of artifice as the recreation of a failed attempt to stage a version of the book and the toll it takes on its participants, one of whom, actor George Anton, tells the story.

Constructed from a hugely impressive collection of artefacts — books, notebooks, posters, flyers, film clips and even the cassette from an answering machine — the drama unfolds leading to the inevitable death of the key participant Paul Bright, who ends up inhabiting the part of the doomed Wringhim. The history of a young unsung radical Scottish theatre director is finally being told.

The level of detail that has been created in staging this “history” is astounding. We enter through an exhibition of the artefacts but we gradually become aware that something isn’t quite right. The artefacts are manufactured, the films are of actors playing actors and Paul Bright never, in fact, existed.

And we ask, what we are really watching?

Just as the book itself leaves us with the key layers and divisions unexplained, so the drama builds even more layers on top of that. Is Bright a reincarnation of Wringhim? What is the relationship between Anton and Bright? Is it all, in Anton’s phrase, “lying and getting away with it?”

This is an important treatment of a vital novel, which is especially important at a time when the image Scotland has of itself is at a crossroads and is experiencing the same degree of fracture referred to by Hogg.

It’s also exceptionally well staged and created. It is a slight disappointment then, that the layers that are piled onto an already complex story, are a little self-referential. It is about more than drama and the arts.

The trouble with theatrical visions of dystopias that reflect where we might be in the very near future with any level of accuracy is that it is difficult to make them funny. Referring to them as a “dark comedy” doesn’t necessarily make them so and such is the problem with Dark Matter (Venue 13), an apocalyptic and moral — possibly even religious — take on the financial and political crisis.

In it, the financial meltdown has arrived, Congress in the US is burning and the mob is stringing up those they consider responsible.

A Congressman and a banker — both have “previous” — meet again as violence overwhelms Western civilisation.

They’ve been brought back together by “the boss” Nick — Old Nick? — and the drama unfolds as the two clash, arguing over responsibility and personal guilt. But they are clearly locked together at the end of the world.

All seems dark as they leave the stage but then a shiny chat show host akin to a televangelist reveals the two reborn as new age global leaders and happily marrieds.

That the new order is based on the exposure and execution of the “boss” and the “cleansing” of most of the population provides a dark, satirical twist — think Chris Morris meets Charlie Brooker.

The trouble is, we are shown the problem and the danger but given no inkling of a solution.

Even so, the writing’s sharp, the acting’s good and the comedy bitter — but not that funny. The best ironic moment is the valedictory music as Barry McGuire — now a born-again Christian — intones his apocalyptic Eve of Destruction as we file out.

Performance poet Elvis McGonagall’s (right) Countrybile (Stand in the Square) not surprisingly deals with the trials — and benefits — of living in the country and, appropriately enough, the show takes place in a yurt.

Fans of his pointed political poetry need not fear though — there’s still plenty of that, particularly now that “the Lib Dem stabilisers are off the Tory tricycle of doom.”

But the new show deals more in lifestyle topics than pure politics, although that doesn’t mean that targets aren’t skewered. Kirstie Allsopp’s self-help programmes, Mamils — middle aged men in Lycra — and in particular the heartfelt lament of pub bar staff — “Are you being served? — point up the reality of so-called rural idylls.

Not that all is nasty in the woodshed. A lovely lyrical piece on Purbeck, the “enduring isle,” celebrates the beauty and persistence of landscape.

But politics will out and the routines Greece is the word and No more Mr Nice Guy, a hymn to aspiration, plant us back in modern times.

McGonagall’s genius is his ability to hone his language into a rapier-like instrument and then to plant it firmly between the ribs that deserve it. “Bend it like Blatter,” indeed.

Some more familiar material is woven into the show from the litany of Scottish icons in The Scottish Lion’s Rampant to the gangsta rap version of the Queen’s Speech — “Bessie in the big house” is indeed “comin’ atcha.”

In the process, McGonagall’s gift for impression stands out, making this a top lunchtime treat. Go.

Joan, Babs and Shelagh Too (Southside) is a difficult show about a difficult woman. Attempting to do justice to Joan Littlewood, one of British political theatre’s most important creators, in a one-woman show of around 50 minutes was always going to be an enormous task. That it happens at all is thanks to the prodigious performance of Gemskii, who also scripted the piece.

She attempts to tell the life of Joan Littlewood, founder of Theatre Workshop and Theatre Union with Ewan McColl, producer of Oh, What a Lovely War! and mother of British political theatre. And she tries it in Littlewood’s own improvisational theatrical style.

It may not quite succeed but it has good fun trying. The overuse of documentary comments intrude instead of enlighten and the music tends to overwhelm Gemskii’s voice. The introduction of individuals such as Barbara Windsor who were important to Littlewood’s life works well and could perhaps have been further developed — Shelagh Delaney, in particular, has a very short cameo.

Even so it’s a portrait of a larger-than-life figure which rises to the challenge and succeeds in highlighting the significance of a female theatre practitioner whose influence is still felt today.