The University of East Anglia is waving off an impressive amount of directors and actors to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this year.

The festival is the largest arts festival in the world, boasting over 2,500 performances of live theatre, art, music and dance. However, despite UEA's department of drama being polled number one in the country, its Minotaur theatre company has never taken a show to the Edinburgh Fringe before.

This year, over 25 UEA students will take three separate productions to the festival. All productions have been approved for the festival's programme, which was officially published yesterday. Third-year drama student Mark Dominy is representing the Minotaur theatre company, taking his production 'Oedipus – The Hour' up to the Festival, along with 12 actors and a production team.

Mark Dominy, 21, originally from Cambridge, wrote and directed 'Oedipus - The Hour', a play he describes as an action-packed, tense version of the Oedipus legend. He said: 'Oedipus refuses to believe that he cannot change his fate, so he seeks to remake himself, but in doing so ends up fulfilling the prophecy of marrying his mother and killing his father. It somehow feels relevant today, when everyone is trying to escape their fate and remake themselves.'

MA directing student Bethany Crane, 21, from Hertfordshire, originally devised her 15-minute puppetry piece 'Ronnie and the Other World' for a drama exam, but decided to take it to the fringe. She said: 'The Edinburgh Festival is a fantastic opportunity to share my work with the world.'

She will be taking a cast of seven students to Edinburgh, but hopes to tour the country with her company, Paper Crane Theatre Company. Drama Graduate Shaun Kitchener will also be taking 'One Night Stand' with four other drama students.

Scott Brown, UEA drama studio administrator, said: 'It's wonderful so many students are going up this year.'

For more information, visit www.edfringe.com