IT’S theatre, but not as we know it.

The Bush Theatre is taking a lead from its new neighbours at Shepherd's Bush Market by inviting audiences to haggle and barter for their evening’s entertainment.

From next Tuesday (July 31) for three weeks only, the venue will be taken over by a mish-mash of side shows, from fortune tellers to white-coated doctors, all competing for a slice of your cash.

About 100 performers will spread into the old library’s nooks and crannies, from the dressing rooms to the attic, creating a magical festival atmosphere.

Theatre Delicatessen is the experimental theatre troupe behind what it has labelled the Bush Bazaar.

Co-founder Jessica Brewster described the project as an attempt to recreate that special festival atmosphere, inspired by a magical moment at Glastonbury.

“There was one morning where I got up quite early and went for a wander around the site,” she explained.

“All of a sudden I found this huge ballroom with two dancers, a big band and a huge crooner in a velvet jacket. It felt like this moment had been created in my own mind.

“I love that sense of strangeness and discovery you get at music festivals and that’s what we wanted to recreate, with each room being like a different world.”

Each night, up to 300 visitors will each shell out £10 for a ticket before digging into their wallets again for the different attractions.

They will be asked to pay what they think the show’s worth, with all performers taking home what they collect on the night.

According to Brewster, £10 should be enough, making the evening good value when compared with the theatre’s standard £24 seat.

The entertainers can decide how to take payment, from getting audiences to put their money in a slot to adopting an a la carte pricing system.

Contributions may not necessarily be in cash form. Instead, performers might ask their audiences to lend a hand.

When Theatre Delicatessen ran a similar night called Theatre Souk, Brewster recalls, one attraction was a beauty parlour where customers could choose from a list of treatments.

“After they’d signed up for, say, a chest wax, this rather large, very hairy man would appear and they’d find out it was their job to wax him,” she said.

Performers were asked to take their inspiration from either the Olympics or the first anniversary of the riots, and this loose theme provoked very different responses.

While some chose to tackle darker subject matter, like how society decides your worth from an early age, others opted to celebrate the simple joys in life like apple bobbing.

Born out of the recession, the show forces both theatre-goers and the performers themselves to confront what is an often uneasy relationship between art and money.

But rather than finding it off-putting, Brewster insists the artists involved have enjoyed the opportunity to gauge what their audience really thinks in terms of hard cash.

“This gives them a sense of control over things because they’re not relying on promoters and the box office to handle the money,” she said.

“They’ve found it really interesting to see what people actually say to their face about how much they think the show’s worth.”

Bush Bazaar opens at the Bush Theatre, in Shepherds Bush, next Tuesday (July 31) and runs until August 18. Tickets, priced £10, are available at www.bushtheatre.co.uk or from the box office on 020 8743 5050. Audiences are advised to bring cash.