The festival discussions kicked off today. Initially reserved and polite it was fired up by Robert Hewison's (Chair of ISDF Judges) comments on Inheritance Blues and his suggestion that no woman in the room could have enjoyed watching a group of men sitting around drinking. This inflammatory statement cause an uproar and was exactly what was required to bring the discussion to life. With the new rigour brought to the proceedings the tempo changed and the more successful the performance the more it was broken down. A brief but exciting introduction to many more discussions to be held in the bar. As the week progresses we anticipate growing controversy, provoking increasingly interesting debate.

Cambridge University's Zombie Haiku constructed an unfamiliar atmosphere leaving the audience unsure as to what they had seen. The assumptions of the conventions on which it is built in the first scene are broken and reconstructed throughout. It shifts through time and place using repetition and sound on a minimal blood stained set. The disjointed scenes come together and fall apart to the 5-7-5 structure. A strangely unsettling performance, it drifted between scenes akin to improvisation exercises and horror film clichés. That is not to say there weren't moments of unique and exciting, physical, theatre but it left a strange taste in the mouth. It seemed a void to be filled. A haiku play that isn't quite a play but goes beyond a poem. A performance divided by syllables and pace, it treads a line that can't quite be drawn.

Leather from The University of Lincoln excelled in it's fast paced and slick scene changes which at times outdid the scenes themselves. The stylised choreography accompanied by dubstep and red light held the performance together and even picked up the overall pace. Otherwise it was an unremarkable story of drug fuelled violence with the occasional moment of genuine invention and creativity. An thoughtful and in parts successful take on a much over subscribed subject.