The team behind the Medway Fuse Festival will be lighting the touch paper for 72 hours of arts and hands-on fun and frolics this weekend.

The annual festival celebrates arts that are different, diverse and daring.

The three days of free events across all of Medway kicks off on the afternoon of Friday, June 13, with an opening parade through Gillingham High Street. Giant figures, puppets and banners, colourful costumes, dancers and the carnival band will parade down Gillingham High Street and end at the Great Lines where there will be theatre performances and street entertainment.

“This year is bigger and better than ever,” said Fuse’s artistic director, Megan Donnolley. “We will present cutting edge visual art and sound events, alongside our trademark circus, dance and street theatre performances and a Saturday Night Spectacular.

“Audiences will experience a wide and eclectic range of contemporary arts, with new work by exciting local, UK and international arts companies and artists set to entertain, surprise and delight.”

On Saturday, June 14, it’s Street Art Day in Chatham. Throughout the day circus, theatre and dance performers will be wowing the crowds. The Saturday Night Spectacular takes place at the Great Lines at 9.30pm. As The World Tipped is a real life disaster movie in the sky.It’s a an ambitious piece of aerial theatre telling a powerful tale of ecological crisis, suspended above the audience in the night sky. The performers struggle to control their increasingly precarious world as they do battle with the effects of drastic environmental catastrophe.

The following day the Fuse Festival action moves to Rochester with the Big Picnic at noon. Families can enjoy free entertainment plus keep an eye out for Grand Theatre of Lemmings and their Smallest Theatre in the World, mounted on a motorbike sidecar.

There will also be plenty of comic art activity including a chance to meet the artists, as well as a special Drawing Dads activity especially for Father’s Day on Sunday, June 15.

Festival highlights

Friday, June 13 Gillingham

Showcase of all the works that have been produced through the workshops during Lighting the Fuse. At the Great Lines, 5.30pm

Medway Heroes Carnival in Gillingham High Street, 4.30pm to 5.30pm

Pedal Powered Poetry Slam, Flair @ LV21, Gillingham Pier, 8pm

Saturday, June 14 Chatham

Street Arts Day, Chatham High Street and Sun Pier, noon

A Thousand Words Exhibition, Rochester Art Gallery, Rochester 11am to 5pm

As The World Tipped, pictured left, The Great Lines 9.30pm

Sunday, June 15 Rochester

Big Picnic, Rochester High Street and Castle Gardens, 11.30am to 6.45pm

Free Fuse Festival of Comics The Princes Hall, High Street, Rochester 11am to 4pm

L’Hotel, glittering, amusing cabaret, noon, 2pm and 4pm, Rochester Castle Gardens

All events are FREE. To find out more call 01634 33831 or to see the full programme information visit www.fusefestival.org.uk