NOW 16, The Yard Theatre

The Yard Theatre, Hackney, is a London fringe theatre favourite with a reputation for the kind of plays that galvanise audiences and score transfers due to popular demand. From an unflinching examination of zero hours contracts in Beyond Caring to a pertinent exploration about army life during peace time in Lines, the emphasis is on staging relevant new writing that breaks boundaries.

Their annual theatre festival, NOW, does exactly this. It presents a carefully selected programme giving fresh, bold contemporary theatre a platform. Over five weeks, The Yard will showcase 10 companies, with influential artists being paired together with new voices to form week long double-bills.

The programme is theatre at its edgiest: topics include gender identity, disability and emotion, and performances span soundscape and installation to pole-dancing. We're looking forward to seeing more from director Jude Christian (who impressed in 2015 with the taut Lela and Co. at the Royal Court), in Week 2, with Nanjing, a show dubbed as a theatre essay on militant pacificsm. Also, in Week 4 look out for theatre maker Chris Goode (Men in Cities, Longwave), who returns to direct FCKSYSTMS, a new show by Ponyboy Curtis, an all-male, avant-garde performance boy band. It sounds bonkers, but the ensemble impressed at last year's NOW. There will also be host of up-and-coming talent, selected from hundreds who applied through open submissions. Click here to explore the full programme.

More than just presenting a show to audiences, the festival is also about artists coming together, sharing ideas and supporting each other. Ultimately, NOW creates a space for both artists and audiences to experiment, take risks and try something new. Expect an eclectic mix of performances with shows questioning and pushing the boundaries of theatrical form as well as interrogating the world today. Think all the best bits of the Edinburgh Fringe, but in Hackney.

Best of all, at just £12 for each evening's double bill, audiences can afford to take risks and see two eye-opening productions for the price of a few pints. Oh, and you can come back every week to find a different pair of shows on offer.