Showing @ Traverse Theatre, 2-5 March

As part of the National Theatre of Scotland’s five year anniversary comes Reveal, a season which pulls back the theatre’s curtain to expose all stages of the creative process. To explore two works-in-progress are a couple of one person shows from new writers with hugely differing themes and styles: Love Letters to the Public Transport System and Count Me In.

Love Letters to the Public Transport System, written and performed by Molly Taylor, is beautifully crafted with a delicious turn-of-phrase that sounds both spontaneous and carefully constructed at the same time. Taylor weaves together her own personal story of love and loss, as well as a few heartfelt stories she has collected during her travels. Although the stories are humble they are wonderfully recognisable as Taylor manages to capture the emotions of infatuating love, and the tiny details of a broken heart that are only felt in the deepest fit of rage and misery.

Owing the coincidence of meeting her new lover to the wonders of the public transport system, Taylor sets out to write to and thank everybody who helped her on each stage of her journey from Liverpool to London. Her hobby turns into something of an obsession, as she begins leaving notes on buses for the drivers, and tracks down drivers of the year for excitable interviews. Her point that we are quick to complain and criticise but rarely commend someone for their hard work is true, but the unending gratitude she feels we all ought to show transport workers isn’t quite convincing enough yet.

From feminine and emotional to overtly political and comic, comes Count Me In. This time written and performed by Gary McNair, the piece feels less like a play and more like a seminar from a wacky professor who’s used all kinds of hands-on learning techniques to make his message seem more like fun than learning. McNair encourages us to question and understand the unfairness of our current voting system, first by throwing some facts at us and then by collecting the audience into their own constituencies to vote on various topics, thus proving how unheard we really are in British politics.

McNair creates a really chilled out, relaxed atmosphere with plenty of audience interaction and people voicing their own opinions as and when they choose. Whilst this is a good example of how a working democracy should really function, it does at times get carried away with the odd unnecessary comment from a know-it-all, and McNair might benefit from keeping his teacher cap firmly on and manipulating a little more mass audience co-operation at times.

The timing of this piece couldn’t be more apt with the approaching referendum on whether or not to switch the electoral voting system to the Alternative Vote (AV). McNair’s pro-AV arguments are so convincing to the point of seeming incredibly obvious, that it is as if he has been commissioned by the campaign’s funders. And yet he allows the audience to be guided to their own damning conclusion.

Although there are a few stumbles and a couple of areas that need a bit of touching up, both pieces promise huge potential for the individual works and for the writers themselves, both of whom have a real grasp on the power and breadth of theatre today.