Dublin Fringe Festival programme unveiled

A man trapped in a giant tube of water, a ballet involving a JCB, a “flash-mob” opera where the score is on the internet and anyone can perform, and a play by serving Midlands Prison inmate are among the 100 shows and spectacles of this year’s Dublin Fringe Festival.

Unlike mainstream theatre festivals the Fringe incorporates a number of genres including music, dance, visual arts, outdoor events and theatre, running over 16 days from September 6th-21st.

It also makes use of some esoteric venues including a car park in the Docklands, a disused school in Ballymun, the Unitarian Church on St Stephen's Green, and the Iveagh Gardens off Harcourt Street.

The Iveagh Gardens are the hub of this year's festival and will play host to the Spiegeltent, which will hold some of the more established acts such as La Clique, the burlesque/cabaret/ circus, which sold out in the 2007 festival.

The Spiegeltent will also feature many of the larger musical acts including the Sugarhill Gang, Cathy Davy, performing "songs that scare children", and Duke Special, who is performing under the title of the Silhouette Old Time Mystery Radio show.

New Irish plays also feature strongly in the line-up, including Appointment in Limbo, a comedy by Patrick McCabe set in a strip-club, Reptilianby Shona McCarthy, winner of the Fishamble New Writing Award 2007, and Two Housesby Belinda McKeon.

Comedian Tommy Tiernan makes his directorial with Help!a play starring his cousin Eleanor Tiernan as a struggling comedian and described as Samuel Beckett meets Jerry Seinfeld. An unnamed inmate of the Midlands Prison in Portlaoise is also directing his first Fringe play, Thicker than Water, a crime story, which the programme says is fictional, centring around paranoia and "male mind-games".

Genre defying works, which combine music, dance, theatre or visual arts, have been grouped under title Pushing the Envelope. These include Cat Lady/Human Jukebox, where a living room is transformed into a "psychological theatre" using cats as actors; Bouffon Glass Menajoree, a parody of the Tennessee Williams play where a new ending is determined by an audience member each night; and Performance Research Experiment #1, described as an audience participation cabaret, where audience enjoyment is assessed throughout the performance of 11 "micro-pieces", one of which involves "anal broom-balancing".

A more pure dance experience is offered in the In Motioncategory with Drinking Dustby the Junk Ensemble Ireland which examines abandonment; Mobile, a solo piece by Claire Cunningham exploring the possibilities of dancing on crutches; and Day of Dancewhich features a number of performances followed by an open discussion with choreographers.

Dance of a different kind will take place outdoors in Grand Canal Square, Docklands with the JCB ballet Transport Exceptionnels, described as a love duet between a dancer and a mechanical digger.

Other outdoor events include Les Etoiles, a ballet on tightropes; NousTube, underwater dance in a giant tube; and Bastien and Bastienne, Ireland's first flash-mob opera. Professionals from the Opera Theatre Company Ireland, will lead the Mozart opera but the audience is invited to "crash the party and sing along" by downloading scores and practice videos.

The Fringe, which is in its 14th year, had taken a huge leap forward, festival director Wolfgang Hoffmann said, particularly in having secured the Iveagh Gardens as the new home for the Spiegeltent.

"We now have a proper festival centre in the Iveagh Gardens which is open from lunch to 2am. Getting a licence for that was an achievement in itself."