Amanda Lawrence’s one-woman evocation of Hawtrey delicately skewers the man’s insecurity, self-regard and collapse into self-pitying fury. A child actor who grows disillusioned and grows old without ever growing up, Lawrence as Hawtrey obsessively replays the defining moments of his stage and film career, frantically determined to play all the plum roles him/herself, but unable to change the outcome of a life emaciated by ambition, lovelessness and mistrust.

Jiggery Pokery is an homage to a certain type of British theatre: that anecdotal Neverland of eccentric actor-managers and tatty glamour, of greasepaint and tantrums and old-fashioned magic. ‘Stage Door. Holborn Empire. Bring tights.’ ripely enunciates the young Charles’ theatrical mentor, provoking ripples of sympathetic delight from a crowd clearly not immune to the frisson-inducing prospect of proper dramatic hosiery.

It’s also a story of mothers and children, the child’s egoistic determination to fly away permanently thwarted by a parent’s querulous and persistent grasp upon their ankle. Lawrence’s portrayal of mother and son, dependant and resentful mirror-images, is masterly in its minute dreadfulness. And her scrupulously ghoulish performance invites the audience to examine the wounds the two inflict upon each other with an impartial eye.

This unconventional bio-drama is like a macabre inversion of the usual Christmas theatre outing. Peter and the Lost Boys are all present and correct, as is Tinkerbell, cross-dressing, song and dance, and even a transformation scene. But Lawrence’s deadpan clowning sets the tone for a bitter tale of innocence bartered for fame. This isn’t Peter Pan, and all the laughter in the world won’t bring back the past, or offer second chances at a life squandered.

The scratches – ten-minute conceptual pieces and works in progress – that comprise Freshly Scratched have been selected purely on the basis of written applications. So though the event’s curators presumably have some inkling of the sort of thing in store, when it comes to opening night they’re in the same boat as the public: experiencing the acts for the first time. What little foreknowledge they have is offset by the greater risk they’re taking; while the audience risks just £5 each on the unknown quality of the acts, the organisers stake their reputations as judges of artistic quality.

On the festival’s first long weekend we’re treated to a wordless bromance enacted between two skinny white men with moustaches, tethered by guy ropes to opposite ends of a ridgepole tent; the surprisingly gripping spectacle of most of a tin of treacle dripping slowly down the trembling back of a naked man; a group of people narrating their losing battle with gravity; and to fellow audience members forced to abandon their roles as passive spectators and physically ward off a performer’s intimate advances.

It’s exhilarating to see the curator stand up following a performance and exhibit the same breathless uncertainty the audience is feeling. Because the BAC’s staff lead by example and don’t leave all the risk-taking up to the artists, the BAC becomes an environment in which risk-taking is the norm, and acts must push more boundaries than anywhere else in order to appear more than usually innovative.

And this is only the first round of this year’s Freshly Scratched: while these scratches are themed around Reasons for Living, the next two weeks will feature acts inspired by Democracy and by David Lynch. So it isn’t too late to share that opening night sensawunda with the people who make it all possible.

Not only that, but the Festival also incorporates the Graduates Festival strand, showcasing an assortment of talent hand-picked from the graduating classes of experimental theatre courses nationwide – including a live video installation in the bar, the chance to communicate with yourself in the year 2014, and a particularly intense and exhilarating example of audio-directed performance. I challenge anyone to find a similar volume of similarly brave art for £5 a ticket.

Originally commissioned by Central School of Speech and Drama in 1990, Mad Forest was the result of a collaboration between Caryl Churchill, director Mark Wing-Davey, ten Central students and Romanian Drama students from Bucharest. It was performed at the Embassy Theatre in London, The National Theatre in Bucharest and the Royal Court back in London.

Divided into three parts, Mad Forest maintains a dialogue between personal and collective turmoil, weaving aspects of Romanian society before and after the revolution with accounts and details of the 21-23rd December 1989. Part One is set several months before the revolution. Lucia is putting her family and friends in jeopardy by embarking on a relationship with an American man she wants to marry. Part two is formed entirely of accounts from the first three days of the revolution, told by various characters, from a flower seller to a member of the Securitate – all with Eastern European accents that separates this act from the rest of the play. Part three returns to Lucia’s family a few months after the revolution, in preparation for Florina’s (Lucia’s sister) wedding.

Mad Forest is elegant and intense under JMK Award Winner Caroline Steinbeis’ direction, playing with notions of ideological repression, the nature of the Romanian people and what December 1989 truly meant to a society.

The play takes its title from the vast forest that used to cover southern Romania, known for its deceptive paths and secret roads that only the locals knew. Each scene is introduced by a character attempting to learn Romanian, holding their guidebook, winding round the forest of the play. And indeed, the play travels blindfolded through the histories of each character in moments of genuine conflict, gradually passing unknown territories of the future.

Movement is almost a second language in this performance, and its precision and spirit bring the worlds of the characters alive, breaking through a complex web of themes. Many scenes are characterized by the domestic: cueing for meat, waiting for the tram, a family gathering, and the beautifully choreographed, almost explosive final scene that reveals the secrets of the people who still remain hungry for lost power. All the details of this production are strikingly accurate and unpretentious.

Intertwined with the short scenes are two important Romanian symbols, the angel and the vampire. Under Steinbeis’ direction the scenes that depict them are not grotesque and bold enough to carry the underlying significance they cry out for. Instead of reminding the audience of the forest we are passing through, its trees packed with similes of human experience, they remain vague and unobtrusive.

Mad Forest is an epic and daring play, and, in this production, the cast rises to the occasion with unbreakable energy and pinpoint focus; portraying characters whose melodrama is symbolic of Romania’s socio-political climate. Although not always clear with intention, Caroline Steinbeis’ direction brings forward the best attributes of the play, looking at the forest rather than getting lost in its trees.

In audio-instructed productions, unrehearsed members of the public are given headphones that deliver prerecorded directions, making them at once audience and performer. Gathering multiple examples of this relatively new art form together under one banner allows its practitioners to prove that it isn’t just a one-trick gimmick; the technique can be applied to a variety of different styles and situations, and can have a variety of different outcomes for the participants.

For instance, while Rotozaza’s Wondermart tries hard to make participants feel safe, Rotating in a Room of Images does the opposite. Participants spend the majority of the 15-minute production in pitch darkness, guided only by invisible hands and the spooky voice in the headphones. The overwhelming feeling is of powerlessness. On your own, you’re incapable even of escaping the darkened space, much less of finding “the Room” to which the voice continually refers. You’re forced instead to rely on the goodwill of expressionless figures glimpsed moving in slow motion during brief periods of visibility – and on the disembodied voice in your head.

The actual content of Rotating in a Room of Images is everything critics of fringe theatre accuse fringe theatre of being – oblique, opaque, and so open to interpretation that it may as well mean nothing at all – but it’ll still leave you emotionally shaken. Whatever that says about this specific audio-instructed production, it’s evidence that the technique in general possesses the power not only to amuse, but also to shock. It’s difficult to decide whether to classify productions like this as theatre, but that breadth of potential should be an incentive to get them under theatre’s umbrella before some other medium claims them as its own.

Participants wired up with headphones and mp3 players are released in pairs into the supermarket, where a voice guides them gently through the aisles towards a playful encounter.

Every effort is made to put potentially nervous participants at their ease, from the reassuring notice in the BAC foyer (“to the people around you shopping at the supermarket you’ll look just like any other shopper”) to the soft, friendly choice of guide voice. Still, it’s sometimes hard to avoid panicky thoughts like, Is this voice going to order me to shoplift, or talk to a stranger, or pay for these random items in my trolley? And will it wreck the preordained choreography of the performance if I refuse?

The head-bendingly precise timing necessary to keep both participants in sync hampers the eventual face-to-face interaction; because every smile and awkward downward glance has to be exhaustively narrated, fleeting glances telescope out into lingering stares, and small actions expand and decelerate into pantomime. But when not mired in minutiae, Wondermart yields some perfectly orchestrated moments, such as when both participants tail each other, mirroring one another’s movements from opposite ends of the same aisle. I defy anyone not to crack a smile when peeping surreptitiously around the end-of-aisle display to find a face peeping surreptitiously back from the other end.

Compared to Rotozaza’s intense GuruGuru, Wondermart is pure whimsy; but it proves that the company aren’t content to coast on the novelty value of audio-instructed autoteatro. It’s still a relatively new form, but far from treating it like a newborn, Rotozaza are relentlessly shaking it about, turning it upside-down and bolting new bits to it like a bunch of theatrical mad scientists. As Aristotle put it: “No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.”

The Forest Fringe – a studio space in an abandoned church, supported by Battersea Arts Centre – was a popular venue at the Fringe 2008. The Forest Fringe at the BAC weekend (27-28 March) showcased some of the best work from last year and previewed some exciting work in progress planned for 2009.

2008 highlights included Tip of Your Tongue, director Abigail Conway’s PostSecret -style anonymous truth-telling ritual, in which participants read and then eat unspoken truths written by others on rice-paper; and Lucy Ellinson’s Eulogy, In State. Ellinson’s piece, staged in a dusty corridor under the BAC’s main staircase, required the audience to help construct a eulogy for Ellinson before holding a vigil over her ‘dead’ body.

Looking ahead to this coming August, Bootworks had taken over a corner of the foyer with their Black Box, a short performance installation intended for a single audience member. In fact – probably intentionally – Black Box proved as entertaining for those outside the box as for the lone observer seated inside. While the silent-movie narrative could only be decoded from inside, only from outside was it possible to appreciate the company’s feats of timing and physical illusion.

In the Committee Room, Tinned Fingers created a cosy, playful world of animal stories, adapted drama games and arbitrary popularity-contest morality, in Our Father’s Ears. An ample supply of wine and the friendly atmosphere ensured the audience were happy to take part.

For just 15 lucky participants per night, Rotozaza were testing out their new ‘autoteatro’ experience, GuruGuru. Autoteatro blurs, erases and redraws the line between audience and performer by feeding prerecorded lines and instructions to participants via headphones, creating a prepackaged performance that changes with every iteration while requiring no regular actors. It’s a form of theatre that would be impossible to conceive without modern technology.

The Festival Fringe is a space for experimentation. Fringe audiences not only accept, but expect deviation from convention. From the looks of its 2009 line-up so far, the Forest Fringe is set to challenge every convention in sight, from the role of the audience right up to what we can comfortably classify as theatre.