Watch This Space Festival returns to London's south bank

Watch This Space returns with its innovative programme of outdoor work, with circus, dance, comedy, film and workshops for all the family to enjoy and for the delight of an unsuspecting audience.

If you’ve wandered down to the south bank recently you will have noticed the giant green chairs outside the National Theatre, which can only mean one thing – the Watch This Space Festival is back.

Watch This Space returns with its innovative programme of outdoor work, with circus, dance, comedy, film and workshops for all the family to enjoy and for the delight of an unsuspecting audience. This year’s festival features work by some of our funded organisations and projects, including Circus Space, Graeae, LIFT, Gate Theatre and the T-Mobile Big Dance.

Circus Space, an east London-based circus arts company and provider of the UK’s only degree in the discipline, has been one of the highlights of the programme. The bachelor’s degree graduation class of 2010 performed their final piece together Step it Out, a savvy look at the world of fashion, in Theatre Square to an audience of more than 5,000 over five days.

The festival gave the performers a high profile platform to demonstrate the result of their hard work and training. It also gave them a fantastic introduction to the process behind a professional performance and working with a large organisation like the National Theatre.

Angus MacKechnie from Watch This Space said: ‘For the students, appearing in the festival at the very end of their training means that they are developing and challenged right to the end of their final year. We have all observed how much they grew in confidence, performance and concentration during their week with us.

‘It has been a great experience for all of us involved and one we look to continue. The final Sunday performance, their last ever together, was a rather emotional occasion and it is particularly special to have that event take place so publically here at the National.’