Edinburgh International Festival 2018 announced

The programme for this year's Edinburgh International Festival has been announced.

Peter Brook's theatre company Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord will be opening new works including La Maladie de la Mort, directed by Katie Mitchell which will also run at the Barbican in October, and Brook's new work The Prisoner, which looks asks questions about justice, guilt and retribution.

David Greig's classic chamber musical Midsummer will be staged in a new production by National Theatre of Scotland and directed by Roxana Silbert. The rom-com tells of Bob and Helena as they have a wild weekend and the action will be accompanied by a live band.

In HOME, illustrator and American actor Geoff Sobelle will, with an ensemble, build and populate a house on stage. Druid Theatre also return to the festival with a production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting For Godot, directed by Tony Award-winning Garry Hynes.

After its run as part of the LIFT Festival, Anna Deavere Smith's Notes from the Field, starring Deavere Smith herself, will open as part of the Edinburgh International Festival. The piece looks at the broken justice system in the context of the Black Lives Matter movement.

This year's opening event will celebrate Scotland's Year of Young People and will reflect on the centenary of the end of the First World War. The piece, called Five Telegrams is a collaboration between Anna Meredith and 59 Productions, inspired by materials found in the Imperial War Museum.

Elsewhere in the programme the Unicorn Theatre presents The End of Eddy, a premiere from Stewart Laing and Pamela Carter, adapted from the novel by Édouard Louis. Hocus Pocus is a dance theatre piece for families and is set to the music of Greig's Peer Gynt.

As well as theatre, the programme boasts a host of contemporary music events, such as appearances from King Creosote, Django Django and The Vaselines as well as opera from Théâtre des Champs-Elysees and Opera de Lyon. Choreographer and dancer Akram Khan will also return to the Edinburgh International Festival with Xenos, his new solo work, as well as Kadamati, a community work for 500 local participants.

Fergus Linehan, the festival's artistic director said: "One of the joys of working in the festival is the opportunity to welcome the world to our country and to our city – and then to have a great party! In 2018 there is a particular emphasis on working collaboratively both with Scottish based artists and ensembles and with our international partners to make work from all over the world.

"We are celebrating different cultures, showcasing Scottish culture, and telling many stories through many different languages."

The Edinburgh International Festival runs from 3 to 27 August, concurrently with the Edinburgh Fringe.