An innocent graduate of Operation Yewtree, Jim Davidson, dazzles in Edinburgh

Let’s start with a nightmare. Wendy Wason, an Edinburgh comedienne, travelled to LA last year accompanied by her husband, who promptly succumbed to a fainting fit. Wason called an ambulance, unaware she was in a hospital car park, and was handed an £8,000 bill to cover the 15-yard trip. By the time her husband had been cured, the invoice had risen fivefold. As comedy Wason’s show (at the Gilded Balloon) is wry, downbeat and hilarious. It also has a Wider Purpose. She believes that US-style healthcare is about to engulf Britain and she wants us to help her save the NHS. Always a dilemma, I find, when stand-ups dabble in politics. Is the comic promoting the cause, or the cause the comic? As we left we were handed tin badges with the legend ‘Wendy Wason’ printed in far larger letters than the campaign slogan. Which was a relief. No dilemma there.

The Trial of Jane Fonda (Assembly Rooms) is based on a true story. In 1988, Fonda was about to shoot a movie in an American backwater but a group of Vietnam veterans vowed to run her out of town. She agreed to meet them. Their encounter is interesting, rather than gripping, and the play is short of suspense or high stakes. The characters seem to have been rustled up from the Cliché drawer. The soldiers are sweary, inarticulate lunkheads who wear baseball caps and combat fatigues. Fonda wafts about in a lovely combination of upmarket summer casuals. And she never once loses her poise, her articulacy or her apple-cheeked forbearance. The show’s highlight is a great performance from Anne Archer. She’s pushing 70, but not very hard. She could pass for 40.