Despite the allure of the World Cup, the National Arts Festival is determined not to be ignored, and organisers are confident that soccer visitors will find their way to Grahamstown for a bit of culture.

If you attend only one show at this year's festival, make sure it is Man to Man, a new production by the internationally renowned South African theatre director and designer Marthinus Basson.

A one-woman show written by German playwright Manfred Karge and starring Antoinette Kellermann, Man to Man is the story of a woman's painful journey of survival.

After the death of her husband after World War 1, impoverished Ella Geric decides to impersonate her husband by taking over his identity and his job as a crane operator.

No newcomer to playing male roles , Kellermann has been fascinated by the experience of playing "breeches parts", she says.

"Playing a male role allows more range, more possibilities," says Kellermann, who first played this part in an Afrikaans translation, As Die Broek Pas, for which she won an award at this year's Klein Karoo Nationale Kunstefees .

"In this English translation, I will also be adding a German accent ... the shift is really challenging, as I still find myself slipping in Afrikaans words."

Another woman to look out for at the festival is Dada Masilo in Swan Lake.

A winner of the 2008 Standard Bank Young Artist Award for dance, the 25-year-old Masilo's contemporary interpretations of classics such as Romeo and Juliet and Carmen have made her a hot favourite.

The Market Theatre, Glasgow's Citizens' Theatre and Newcastle-upon-Tyne's Live Theatre join forces to present The Girl with the Yellow Dress , playwright Craig Higginson's second play.

Directed by Malcolm Purkey, the artistic director of the Market Theatre, the play was inspired by Ovid's Echo and Narcissus and psychoanalytic writings on narcissism.

Set in contemporary Paris, it follows exchanges between Celia, an English teacher in her late 20s, and Pierre, her younger French-Congolese pupil.

According to Higginson, "the play is a dialogue between the first and third world, between Europe and Africa".

Comic highlights at the festival include Corné and Twakkie in theMost Amazing Show, Bevan Cullinan as Gary, The Tooth Fairy and Gaëtan Schmid's one-man show, Rumpsteak, featuring 13 characters and more than 800 sound effects, and described as "a hilarious behind-the-scenes look at rush hour in a French restaurant, using only one square metre of performance space".