STOCKTON-ON-TEES boasts the widest high street in the UK and from today until Sunday the Stockton International Riverside Festival (SIRF) will once again transform the town centre into a huge outdoor theatre set. The festival is in its 27th year and claims to be “The world’s best international festival of outdoor art”, and has a tremendous reputation to live up to because each year gets better and better. Could this be the best one yet?

Four days jam-packed full of the craziest performance ideas you can think of including dancing skeletons, flying acrobats, street theatre, circus, dance, music and pyrotechnics and plenty of food stalls throughout the festival, which will take place at various locations round the High Street – most of the events are free.

Things kick off tonight with the festival launch event, Safe House, a large-scale performance by the contemporary arts organisation Metro-Boulot-Dodo. Visual projections form the backdrop to the show on Trinity Green as the company explore the significance of home and the importance of being part of a community. Acrobatic performers scale the walls of a mysterious house, appear out of windows and climb onto the roof top and fly around the house as rooms, memories and characters are revealed.

SIRF 14 offers up to 30 individual shows a day from noon until 11pm. Dancing skeletons, sensory adventures and high flying acrobats, a comedy bus stop plus a maze installation from Itinerania, that you can lose yourself in.

Imagine you’re on Stockton High Street and you see a shop where a huge plant is growing out of the first floor window. The downstairs area looks like it’s filled with soil and workers are scrambling around harvesting food and the audience’s view is through peep holes. Of course you would have a look. Future, from Whalley Range All Stars is something quite absurdly individual, and it could even make shopping interesting.

One of the highlights is The Roof by Fuel – a suspended reality show that stars with a figure emerging from an open door onto a roof. Set within the suspended reality of a dramatic game, knives will be sharpened as the reluctant hero desperately tries to stay alive.

The audience will experience a 360 degree performance and will wear headphones to enable them to take in an intimate soundtrack.

A purpose-built arena, which will be in the Dairy Car Park, off Church Road, has been designed by Jon Bausor, set designer for the London 2012 Paralympic Games opening ceremony. The Roof performances are tomorrow at 9.30 pm, Saturday at 7pm and 9.30 pm and Sunday at 6pm and 8.30pm. Advice to audiences is that this show is not suitable for children under 12 years.

SIRF always manage to spot some fabulous and unusual musicians and among the best is Hannabiell and Midnight Blue, a high-energy ensemble that fuses Afro-Caribbean and Latin percussion with Jazz, Afro-beat, Funk and Reggae to create their own unique sound.

Then there’s Enivrez-vous, who are three potty acrobats, an accordionist, three chairs and a smattering of poetry and song. These four companions get drunk on poetry, song and escape into a world of weightlessness.

Madame Bonbon’s eccentric street-style routine is a colourful creation from Londonbased theatre company, Cocoloco. With her comic cupcake fortune readings, cheeky tea leaf predictions and pointed innuendos, she will perform on the High Street on Saturday at 1pm and 6 pm and Sunday at 1pm and 4:20pm.

Stockton’s annual Community Carnival will take place during the festival on Saturday.

This year’s themes include Outer Space, Great Explorers, The Big Bang and Journey to the Centre of the Earth offering a real Stockton street treat.

  • Go to sirf.co.uk for more events, ticket and timings.