Five shows where food and Fringe meet at the Edinburgh festival

FOR the adventurous theatre-goer looking for nourishment for body as well as mind, FeastFest is a new mini-festival of sumptuous delights to whet the appetite running throughout August.

FeastFest - Unfolding Theatre

Five shows have been created by international artists from Turkey, France, the UK, China, Taiwan and New Zealand to offer tasty morsels and cultural nutrition with immersive and site-specific performances.

Taking the universal experience as a starting point to celebrate our similarities and differences, the goal of the FeastFest is to celebrate diversity in theatres through food.

The shows are Citizens of Nowhere? (UK), Hold On Let Go (UK), Feast (UK/Turkey/France), Chocolate (New Zealand) and kids’ show Feast of Fools (UK).

Citizens of Nowhere? invites audiences to eavesdrop on a family conflict through headphones as British-Chinese matriarch Linda Lo tries to share an exciting decision with her son and daughter, but their own life-changing events make them unreceptive to her news.

The funny and moving real-time audio drama is served with light refreshments in the restaurant of Sweet Novotel (16 -25 August).

Hold On Let Go, featuring live breadmaking and songs by Paul Smith (lead singer of Maxïmo Park), is a show about what we do when we start to forget.

Presented at Summerhall (31 July- 25 August) it is the story of Alex - a 56-year-old with an encyclopaedia in his head, and Luca, a woman half his age with an encyclopaedia on her phone.

Feast from Clout Theatre, employs physical theatre, clowning and multimedia to delivers a history of food served in three chapters: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner.

Just how has our relationship with food changed throughout history? See it at Bruford at Summerhall (6-18 August).

Chocolate melds dance, live music and a rich dark chocolatey story complete with the aromas of deliciously melted chocolate.

Java Dance Theatre will take you through an immersive show of conflicting desires, from cacao harvest to melted liquid delight in full-bodied wild sensory dance at Assembly Rooms (1-24 August).

Finally, Feast of Fools is a children’s show packed full of tales of culinary capers, from disgusting banquests to salubrious suppers and measly meals. Storyteller Daniel Serridge regales families with unusual tales of foodie fun at the Scottish Storytelling Centre (1-18 August).

Tickets for all shows are available from www.edfringe.com or 0131-226 0000