Edinburgh Fringe comes to China

As the 2014 Edinburgh Festival Fringe runs, five Fringe hits will be staged for Chinese audiences from September, the shows' promoters have announced.

Co-sponsored by the British Council and the Beijing 707N-Theater, "Edinburgh Fringe Showcase" will open with Brazilian theater group AMOK Teatro's "Kabul", a play that examines the lives under the iron rule of the Taliban, and "Odyssey", a dialogue-free live performance cinema based on the epic Greek poem.

The rest include avart-garde dance drama "Missing" by the Gecko Theatre about a soul-searching journey, "What Happens to the Hope at the End of the Evening" about the reunion of friends and "I, Malvolio," a one-man show based on Twelfth Night.

"Each year, good theater works emerge from the Fringe and attract fierce competitions among promoters, and we've made a great effort to win these titles," event organizer Shui Jing said Sunday.

The mini festival will tour Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuhan, Guangzhou and Shenzhen in the course of four months.

"Bringing this work to China will help audiences and artistes break free from traditional theater," said a statement from the Foreign Liaison Bureau of the Ministry of Culture.

Edinburgh Festival Fringe dates back to 1947 when it was an alternative to the Edinburgh International Festival. It has since grown into one of the world's largest arts festival, lasting more than 20 days in every August.