Back for its 20th incarnation, Sprint is London’s longest established and biggest celebration of all the boldest, newest theatre from emerging artists. With over 40 shows, the festival offers a chance to take in the current state of innovative theatre, and an insight into where the genre is headed. Here, Brian Logan, Camden People's Theatre (CPT) Artistic Director brings us up to break-neck speed with what to expect.

I took part in the second Sprint festival of new and unusual theatre, about a hundred years back. (Okay – it was in 1998. But in indie theatre years, that’s a century ago.) I was 24, and making a show about two friendly dragons, in sombreros, settling in a Brazilian town. It was the first production my company Cartoon de Salvo ever made; we went onto tour to Hong Kong, Washington DC and beyond, stage epic runs at Soho Theatre, BAC and the Lyric Hammersmith, and make a dozen or so shows over the following 15 years. But it all started, more or less, at Sprint. That wee black-box studio on a flyblown corner of Drummond Street and Hampstead Road? It was our launchpad.

We weren’t alone: some of the UK’s most eye-catching theatre-makers over the last decade cut their teeth at, or passed through, the Sprint festival – which isn’t just London’s biggest, but also by far its best established jamboree of cutting-edge performance. To cite a few examples: Fevered Sleep, Shunt, Unlimited Theatre, Idle Motion, Chris Brett Bailey. If you’re a fan of indie theatre, that’s an impressive list. If you’re not, no matter: an opportunity looms to get acquainted. Sprint 2016 is upon us, and among the 50+ artists and companies taking part are sure to be several who’ll be the big names, and the big noises, of tomorrow.

Maybe that’s why – even though we at CPT programme ace work by new artists year-round – Sprint remains a highlight of any year here. It’s the event that refreshes our gene pool, that casts its net widest in search of unheard voices, unseen talents, unimagined spectacles. It’s the month of the year when we pile the mad new stuff highest – cram our building, indeed, with shows no one’s seen before, from London, the UK, Europe and beyond. From artists making their first professional work (like me in my sombrero, back in the day), from old friends with bright new ideas to try out, and from the occasional veteran having a crack at something they’ve never cracked at before.

Why should you come? (I’m sure you’re busy.) First and foremost, because we’ll give you a lively and unexpected night out. On any evening at Sprint, there’ll be minimum two performances to see – and we pair them as creatively (and affordably) as we can to ratchet up your chance of an enjoyable / provocative / surprising experience. We also prioritise work that engages directly with its audience: pulse-quickening rather than chin-stroking is the order of the day. Secondly, because we specialise in work that’s about stuff that matters to people, right now. Any given night at Sprint is apt to feel like a tightrope walk along the UK’s current social, political or cultural faultlines. (Don’t worry: we’ll happily serve you a stiff drink afterwards.)

Here are some examples. In Sprint 2016, we’ve got shows interrogating social class (Conrad Murray’s electrifying DenMarked; Libby Liburd’s verbatim piece about single mums, Muvvahood). We’ve got performances about desensitisation to violence (Susan Kempster and Adam Foster’s Matador(a), part of our Starting Blocks strand of hot-off-the-press work); about racial sensitivity and use of the n-word (a newbie from our associate artist Jamal Harewood); and a comedy show about the disenfranchisement of the millennial generation (Jack Kelly and Henry Maynard’s Skrimshanks.) There’s a cabaret show comparing Britain’s shrinking state to its counterparts in France and the US, and a performance interrogating our relationship with the internet.

And yet – unlike several of CPT’s other festivals (our current ‘Whose London Is It Anyway?’, say), Sprint isn’t primarily about the state of our society. Some of its prominent shows this year are spiritual enquiries – like festival closer The Rave Space, Will Dickie’s exploration of the overlaps between DJ and guru; or Thom Jordan’s piece Thorn, award-nominated at the Adelaide Fringe, drawing on his devout Christian upbringing to tell a compelling tale of faith and hypocrisy. Others still are autobiographical pieces, in which identity is a recurring theme – witness Tina Nanakini’s 14 Scattered Islands (part of our all-new student-and-graduate strand, ‘Freshers’), or Kadir Karababa’s piece about assembling a self from a lifetime of old photographs.

There are more strands to Sprint 2016 – some planned, some happy accidents. I’m pleasantly surprised by how international the programme looks – with Thom Jordan from Oz joined by Barcelona’s award-hogging Atresbandes, Portugal’s Oscar Silva, Orion Maxted bringing The Machine over from Amsterdam and Canada’s Haley McGee (pictured above) with a terrific show about love and heartbreak. Add to that our shorter performances strand 3xThursday, one evening per week on which you can see three cracking shows at 45 minutes or under; and a clutch of off-site shows including Afreena Islam’s Daughters of the Curry Revolution, in a curry house round the corner (TBC - when we confirm which restaurant…) Then there’s the debut gig from the brand new young people’s theatre group we’ve launched with our friends at New Diorama and the Fitzrovia Centre, Camden Youth Theatre, on Monday 21 March.

Don’t mistake the above for my “top tips” – I’ve only a little more idea than you do what Sprint’s highlights will be. Much of the work in this festival is still being made: it’s going to crackle with that liveness you get when something newborn appears in front of you on a stage. But if you’re looking for home-bankers, you could do worse than trust some of the artists who’re already well-loved at CPT, returning with mouth-watering new offerings – like Hannah Sullivan’s show about anger, With Force and Noise, or the playful live-art duo Odd Comic’s show about pet ownership, My Champion Heartache. Some of these artists are already rising stars of the indie theatre scene; others will surely trampoline from Sprint to some offbeat brand of performance mega-stardom. Be here in March and see them before the world catches on.

Sprint 2016
Camden People’s Theatre
Wednesday 2 - Saturday 26 March 2016
Booking and info: cptheatre.co.uk

About Brian Logan
Brian has been co-director of CPT since Sept 2011. Brian’s prior (and ongoing) theatre work includes sixteen years as a co-director of the acclaimed touring theatre company Cartoon de Salvo, with whom he has devised and performed in 11 major shows, including Meat & Two Veg (BAC and international tour), The Sunflower Plot, Hard Hearted Hannah and Other Stories (Lyric Hammersmith, Edinburgh Fringe and Kennedy Center, Washington DC), Made Up (Soho Theatre, 2012) and Pub Rock. Brian’s play David Hume’s Kilt was developed at the National Theatre of Scotland and semi-staged at the Traverse, Edinburgh in 2009; its follow-up The Keys to the Universe was runner-up for the Robert McLellan Award. Brian is also a theatre and comedy writer for The Guardian, and former assistant theatre editor of Time Out London.