The Dublin Fringe Festival, as it was called until recently, is not known as the Binge Festival for nothing. For two weeks, the capital will be transformed into a gigantic performance space, where art seeps into public spaces, theatre spills beyond its confines, and strange people in funny clothes do weird things on street corners without fear of immediate arrest.

With, at a rough estimate, three zillion shows in this year’s festival, it can be hard to know where to begin. But director Roise Goan’s first programme cannily rewards risk-takers, safe-betters and good-time seekers.

Anyone hungry for fresh blood should check out Who Is Fergus Kilpatrick? (Project, Sep 4-12), THEATREClub’s Rough (Player’s Theatre, Sep 8-12) and Daguerreotype’s Wozzeck (Smock Alley, Sep 15-20).

Old reliables – in so far as anything truly Fringe-worthy should be considered reliable – include Loose Canon’s Piggy Back Project: Anatomy of a Seagull (Smock Alley,

Sep 5-12) and Jesus Has My Mom in There and Has Beat Her Up Real Bad (Smock Alley, Sep 16-19), Performance Corporation’s Power Point (Camden Court Hotel, Sep 7-19) and mp3 tour guides Rotozaza with Wondermart (Filmbase, Sep 13-19).

Many Fringettantes will make a beeline for La Clique, the perennially popular international cabaret extravaganza at the handsome Spiegeltent (Sep 8-20), which is itself making a final bow at this year’s festival.

But for something that is quintessentially yet indefinably Fringe, it will be hard to beat Die Roten Punkte (Metro Bosco Theatre, Sep 7-12), Anu Productions’ site-specific show Basin (Blessington St Park, Sep 8-18), the bouffon show The Blanch (Filmbase, Sep 7-12) and the wickedly joyful, free outdoor epic Spartacus: Highway to Hell (Civic Offices Amphitheatre, Sep 13). Typically, we’ll have missed an essential must-see, so see fringefest.com for still more binge options and kindly write your personal highlight in the space provided:

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