Latitude: the festival that encourages theatre-makers to be braver

Heading to Latitude this weekend? If you are a theatre-lover, it's certainly tempting. Latitude remains the only festival to really take its theatre and performance programme seriously, and outside of the Edinburgh fringe it's probably now the biggest gathering of the theatre clans. It's no surprise that a What Next? public discussion around the value, impact and future for the arts in the UK is scheduled in the literary tent early on Sunday evening. I'll be there along with the Young Vic's David Lan, Topher Campbell from the Red Room, Sadler's Wells' Alistair Spalding and others.

Latitude is a place where new alliances and collaborations are forged and where established artists and newcomers try out new work and meet new audiences and have unexpected conversations. As Forced Entertainment's Cathy Naden says: "It's good for us and other companies to get out of the safety of theatres." It certainly is. One of the great things about Latitude is that it doesn't just encourage artists to be a little braver, it encourages audiences to try something different too. No room in the comedy tent? Well maybe that's the moment to catch the latest work in progress from Made in China or Look Left, Look Right, who will be at Latitude with a new piece they are developing, Centenarians.

This year's programme, which begins tonight, includes Paines Plough presenting Kate Tempest's Hopelessly Devoted, Told by an Idiot in Never Try This at Home, Drywrite's hilarious and heart-breaking hit Fleabag, with the mesmerising Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and Alice Birch's Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again, the pick of the RSC's Midsummer Mischief Festival. All this takes place in the theatre tent which Paines Plough's James Grieve says makes him think of the Coliseum in Rome. Scary.

"You've always got to remember that you've got 700 people watching who could all be somewhere else watching a band or a standup. It's an enormous challenge because if you don't connect with the audience, they will simply get up and walk in a way they wouldn't do in a theatre." I've seen confident companies come out gibbering, but when companies have really thought hard about what to present there and how to do it, it can be as thrilling as the dynamic between audience and performers at the Globe on a night when the show is really flying.

But there is plenty of life beyond the theatre tent. "Theatre's changed since I first began getting together the theatre programme," says Latitude's Tania Harrison, "so how and where we present it has had to change too." Harrison has learned on the job, and it shows, not just in more adventurous programming but also in how and where theatre is now presented. Theatre is now to be found tucked away in unexpected nooks and crannies throughout the site. New for this year is a Shed of Stories, and the Little House where The Flanagan Collective, Get in the Back of the Van, Idle Motion, Clean Break are just some of those performing. It's also where you'll find the brilliant dark fairytale The Notebook by Forced Entertainment who are making their first trip to the festival. The Notebook, about twins living on the edge of a forest in the second world war should make an interesting shift when it is actually played in the woods rather than in BAC's main space.

Forest Fringe have their own space in the Faraway Forest where there is a brilliant programme featuring Greg Wohead's The Ted Bundy Project, Christopher Brett Bailey's This is How We Die and, all day on Sunday, Brian Lobel's nine-hour durational one-on-one during which he will continuously be watching Sex and the City. There's lots more too, kicking off tonight with a specially commissioned secret one-on-one in the forest and an autobiographical storytelling show around the theme of secrets and lies.

I'll be there for the entire weekend and reporting back. Do say hello, and tell us below the theatre shows you are looking forward to seeing, and the ones you recommend.