Good With Faces review – mesmerising power struggle will have you sitting uncomfortably

Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh Daniel McVey merrily recruits the audience for a fun hour of cosy crime that bleeds into cosmic horror With a title like that, perhaps it’s no surprise that this afternoon’s show is sold out. Who wouldn’t want to find out how a stray limb ended up in a village fete’s raffle? Writer, performer and director Daniel McVey greets us as his drag character Lydia, a woman who rules over local festivities with a strict schedule – and a firm grip on the tombola. Audience members are encouraged to get up and have a go, and not just that: they’re also cast in McVey’s play as glove puppeteers, actors and – gasp! – suspects in a terrible murder. At Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, until 31 August All our Edinburgh festival reviews..

The British actor delivers his strongest performance to date in indie film Union County as a person struggling with substance abuse trying to turn his life around Every week, Annette Deao, a drug dependency counselor, sits in the county jail and offers incarcerated people in rural Ohio a chance at recovery. One bright day she meets Cody, a young man who shuffles towards the lectern and quietly says that he’s ready to give it a shot. “His self-respect is in the basement,” said Will Poulter, the British actor who plays the character. “He doesn’t like or accept himself enough to embark on helping himself.” Directed by Adam Meeks, an Ohio native, Union County is a bruising yet poetic depiction of a real life drug recovery court in Bellefontaine, Ohio, where individuals join long-term treatment programs with daily sobriety testing. Though the film is led by Poulter and Noah Centineo as foster brothers taking steps to get clean, much of the supporting cast is made up of first-time actors who share their real – and often painful and non-linear – stories of recovery. The hybrid of narrative feature and documentary-esque elements combine in a deeply affecting watch that is anchored by Poulter’s natural-feeling approach to the role...

Jason Arday, the school’s youngest Black professor, was found dead on Friday. The school ignored a series of warnings about his life story and his work.