The problem facing German-based theatre company Rimini Protokoll as they devised their latest show was how to create an interactive experience for 200 people at one time.

“We did some work where people went into a one-to-one interactive experience,” says Helgard Haug, co-director and co-author with Stefan Kaegi, of Best Before, which is making its UK premiere at Brighton Festival 2010.

“We wondered how we could achieve it for 200 people in the audience without standing them on stage or putting them in an embarrassing situation.”

It was during the group’s visit to Vancouver that the light bulb went off.

“We realised that in Vancouver video games were really big,” says Helgard. “A lot of jobs and money in the city comes from games, so we started researching how we could get 200 people in one place via a series of avatars.”

Best Before sees each audience member being given a kidney-shaped old-style games controller – chosen because they were more reliable than Wii sticks for the purpose – and taking part in a two-hour game, which takes them all the way from birth to death.

“Each member of the audience is represented by a bubble avatar, and by making their choices they decide the appearance that avatar takes,” says Helgard. “You can decide whether it is male or female, and as questions are asked it can change shape. The more money the bubble makes the bigger it grows.”

The questions the audience has to answer not only deal with their own individual character but also the society they want to shape in the world Rimini Protokoll has named Bestland.

As well as voting for a president, who has to answer their own personal five tough questions and may suffer a coup d’etat while in office, the audience has to decide whether it wants their world to have an even distribution of wealth, support an army, legalise heroin and criminalise abortions.

“There are 200 stories going on with the avatars,” says Helgard. “But there are another 200 stories from the people who are creating the avatars too. Some questions might see you decide against your own convictions. You see some people have a hard time deciding, which is interesting.”

There is also the chance that your game might end early, as there are some points in the show where audience members’ avatars will get eliminated.

“It is frustrating for the people that happens to,” says Helgard.

“We have had people leave the theatre after they were knocked out as gamers!”

Guiding the audience through the game are four hosts and a live musician.

As with previous Rimini Protokoll shows, which included last year’s current affairs-based Breaking News, the hosts are not actors, but people drawn from real life professions. This tour includes an industry programmer who has programmed Best Before, a game tester who worked finding bugs in software, and a former press spokesman for the gaming industry.

They are joined by a Canadian journalist turned lollipop lady – a world unconnected to gaming.

“She took a radical decision in her life, and wanted to do something to find herself,” says Helgard.

“She acts as a time machine on the game, announcing the age we have reached.”

After it was conceived in Vancouver, Best Before moved to Seattle, and then Berlin.

“It is really fresh,” says Helgard. “We are still working on it as we go along and adding to the experience.”

* 8pm, 2pm matinee Saturday, tickets £15, call 01273 709709