Australia's longest-running - and quite possibly only - ongoing gay theatre company is leaving our shores. Outcast Theatre plan to take Steven Dawson's play, Adventures of Butt Boy & Tigger, to Edinburgh for the 2008 Fringe Festival.

Company tour manager and Outcast Theatre performer Adrian Corbett says the Edinburgh season is all about exposure.

"It is the largest arts market in the world and it's such a fantastic opportunity to get Steven's work seen, not only by people in the UK, but also promoters from Europe and America," he says.

Butt Boy & Tigger takes audiences on a bawdy ride through the world of online chatting, where the lines between fantasy and reality are often blurred.

Dawson has been on the receiving end of criticism in the past, with some considering his works gratuitously sexual.

Corbett says the plays have a wide demographic that is still growing.

"I love the fact that people will bag Steven's work but there's no one else doing what he does," says Corbett. "He's one of the few successful theatre companies of this size and style and he's providing new GLBTI work that's funny and topical."

The new Edinburgh production of Steven Dawson's Adventures of Butt Boy & Tigger, starring Felix Allsop and Angus Brown, will be staged in Melbourne later this month.

Mechanics Institute
Sydney Road, Brunswick
July 15 - 26
8.15pm
Details: 9305 5333
Tickets $20
www.outcast.org.au

by DAREN POPE