CURD you believe it? The Barbican Theatre's new season includes a show about cheese.

The Guild of Cheesemakers by Stand + Stare involves tasting the stuff, sipping wine and tucking into bread too.

Add a narrative and a supernatural cheese and you have food for thought about the future of the human race.

The tasty March 9 offering is part of the second Flourish season, building on the success of the last year's inaugural showcase for new South West talent.

From February 10, ten companies will occupy Friday nights at the Castle Street venue with invigorating theatre, dance, spoken word and film.

Drama-based offerings include Optimism by Uncanny Theatre, which blends dark clowning with multimedia, Translunar Paradise by Theatre Ad Infinitum, a wordless and moving mask and mime, plus that cheesy work from Stand + Stare.

International clown troupe Le Navet Bete – which began life at Plymouth University – return to the Barbican, this time with Napoleon: A Defence, following their Christmas show, The Greatest Story Never Told.

Among the dance pieces is Totnes-based Impermanence's Blanched Stories, a collaboration between dancers, musicians, poets and visual artists inspired by early motherhood. Dance double bill from Guest Suites and Soliloquy feature dancers and musicians and a film piece based on the Cornish landscape respectively.

Promnesia has dancers and actors from the Barbican's own Future Artists programme exploring the difference between being alone and being lonely – despite having 859 friends on Facebook.

Singer Mama Tokus brings gospel truths in a sing-a-long-pray-alonga ecumenical expedition into faith, spirituality and belief systems from Satanism to Scientology, while MC and poet Jack Dean offers Under Stokes Croft, a live graphic novel with stop-motion animation based around the Tesco Riots.

Flourish leaves only one Friday night (February 24) before April 13 (Tokus/ Stokes share March 30).

Last year the Barbican's new talent programme developed two companies that went on to five-star reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

See if you can spot the next big thing at this year's Flourish for the modest cost of £5 to £10.

Award-winning choreographer Matthew Bourne, of all-male Swan Lake fame, is grateful to the Barbican for helping him on the way and is a fan of Flourish.

He said: "Early on in my career the Barbican Theatre took a risk and promoted my company's work. Events like Flourish are essential to the future of live performance in this country."

Emily Williams, creative producer at the theatre, says the season gives Plymouth audiences the chance to see some of the newest work in the region first.

She said: "Translunar Paradise, by Theatre Ad Infinitum, is one of the best pieces I have ever seen and to be able to programme it into Flourish gives me the chance to pass it on to audiences who might not otherwise get the chance to see it."

Every show will finish with a post-show discussion directly with the performers.

For more information go to www.barbicantheatre.co.uk or ring the box office on 01752 267131.