Fleabag, an electrifying, disarmingly honest monologue by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and the tender but heart-wrenching two-hander Halcyon Days by Deirdre Kinahan, have both been awarded Fringe Firsts at the 2013 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

A hilariously rude but incisive look at responsibility and sexuality in today’s young people, Fleabag is the debut play by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, actress, writer and Co-Artistic Director of new writing company DryWrite. It has received widespread critical acclaim, with Whatsonstage.com calling it ‘a sharp-edged gem of a solo show’, and Matt Trueman in the Scotsman declaring ‘I’ve never seen a play quite like it.’ Fleabag runs at Underbelly Cowgate until 25 August, before transferring to the Soho Theatre Upstairs in London’s West End in September. Waller-Bridge, who as well as being the author also performs the piece, was recently seen on the London stage in DryWrite's production of Jack Thorne's unflinching domestic drama Mydidae.

Deirdre Kinahan’s Halcyon Days is a poignant drama set in a nursing home in Ireland, where a recently admitted teacher, struggling to adapt to her new surroundings, strikes up a friendship with a retired actor. Produced by Landmark Productions – also the producers of a highly successful revival of Mark O’Rowe’s Howie the Rookie at this year’s Fringe – the play (marketed as These Halcyon Days at the Edinburgh Fringe), which was first staged at the Dublin Theatre Festival 2012, has been warmly received, with The Times describing it as ‘beautifully judged’, and Three Weeks praising it for being ‘heart-warming and tear-jerking in equal measure’.

The scripts to both Fleabag and These Halcyon Days are published by Nick Hern Books, and are available to buy on this site at a 25% discount. To see all other NHB titles currently being performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, as well as across the rest of the UK, visit our On Stage Now page.