EAST Anglia’s answer to the Edinburgh Fringe looks set to be the best yet with an even bigger showcase of some of the very best local talent around.

The annual Pulse Fringe Festival, hosted by the New Wolsey Theatre in Ipswich, is a spring-board for fresh new artistic voices, as well as a home for risk-taking and cutting-edge performances from more established artists.

The line-up for this year’s festival has just been announced and includes an eclectic mix of theatre, dance, comedy, music, event led visual arts, physical theatre and circus led work.

Among the highlights this year are Paperweight by Top of the World, an absurd story of two men trapped in mindless office jobs, and the Caravan by Look Left Look Right, which tells the stories of real families forced to live in caravans as a result of the severe flooding in 2007. Performances of the Caravan will actually take place in a caravan with an audience of eight.

Festival favourites the Ornate Johnsons return this year with a rehearsed reading of Mississippi, a new comedy by Louise Law and Brian Mitchell, and the October Revolutions by Brian Mitchell, a hilarious portrait of just how rubbish humans can be in the pursuit of love.

There are also four dance evenings, programmed in consultation with Assis Carreiro, DanceEast chief executive and artistic director, and Pulse has worked with Ipswich’s Town Hall Galleries this year to provide opportunities for visual artists to participate.

Colchester playwright Nicola Werenowska follows-up her hugely successful Peapickers for Eastern Angles with a completely different piece of theatre in Dreamdance.

Performed by locally-based Footprints Theatre Company, it explores the relationship between two women in the decadent but dangerous world of cabaret in 1920s Germany.

Wivenhoe-based Segue productions will also be taking part in the festival with one of their performers, Adriano Adewale, in Sound Journey.

He is known throughout the world as a master Afro-Brazilian master percussionist and in his show will take the audience on a musical journey, exploring the ideas of identity, immigration and climate change.

The Pulse Festival runs from May 27 to June 13 at various venues in Ipswich.