HOW do you draw attention to a week-long festival of new performances and workshops?

Harrogate Theatre has come up with the all-embracing title of And Now For Something Completely Different, a phrase last in the possession of comic loons Monty Python.

Running from March 22 to 27, the festival will feature visiting professional companies and rising young talent in a programme of dance, drama, literature and workshops.

Hannah Chissick, the theatre's artistic director, says: "This will be a very exciting and ambitious week for Harrogate Theatre, which will see the best new emerging talent, combined with award-winning companies, coming to this theatre for the first time."

The first highlight will be RJC Dance's performance of Mekwae on Monday at 7.30pm on the main stage. For this work, RJC Dance has turned to the Caribbean for inspiration to explore through dance the cultural roots of reggae and how it lives and breathes today.

From Tuesday to Thursday at 10am, En Masse Theatre Company presents Echo Chamber, a show written for "brave children and even braver adults" by directors Oliver Birch and Amy Leach. The Studio will be transformed into one of Harrogate's spookiest venues for the true story of an ill-fated Victorian family.

Dead Earnest turns the Studio into a battlefield on Tuesday night for Stalingrad, a tale of two titanic armies clashing in the chill of 1942. In the midst of the carnage, the grotesque figure of death plays a haunting melody to the frost-bitten soldiers.

On Wednesday and Friday, Steve Ansell, from Harrogate Theatre's outreach programme HT2, directs Harrogate Young Company in 10pm performances of Edinburgh Fringe hit Gob in the Studio.

A poetry evening at 7.30pm on Thursday in the Studio will be followed by Poetry Jam, an invitation to participate in a night of stand-up poetry, improvisation and live music in the Stalls bar from 9pm.

In Darren Tunstall's play Tonight We Fly - The Story of Marc Chagall, Trestle Theatre Company uses masks, puppets and live Jewish folk music to "bring the artist and his pictures to life" on the main stage on Friday at 7.30pm.

Earlier that day, at 5pm Trestle will hold a workshop in the Studio. Further workshops will be presented by DPA, on breakdancing, on Monday, 5pm; Steve Ansell and Madeleine Frost, of HT2, whose Acting Up session for adults on Tuesday at 5pm will conclude with a short devised performance on the main stage; Ruby Dance, whose 5pm show on Wednesday, Clog Dancing As A Dangerous Sport, will be followed by a workshop session that will inject a modern slant into the traditional world of clog dancing; and Jonathan Hall, whose 5pm workshop in the Stalls bar on Thursday will give writers tips on How To Get Yourself Out Of Trouble when you have written yourself into a corner.

The festival will end with a Music Party day, from noon until 11pm next Saturday, organised by Pumpleton Sonic Landscaping.

Tickets for all events can be booked on 01423 502116.

Updated: 08:59 Friday, March 19, 2004