The Splatitude - sorry Latitude - Festival in rural Suffolk started off a few years ago with the feel of being for a Radio 4 audience (I first heard of it when The Now Show was broadcast from it 3 or 4 years ago), including literature, poetry, ballet, snippets of opera. However it is also a music festival, and sometimes feels a bit like 2 festivals in the same place. Personally I would prefer to have more emphasis on the radio 4 element - there are lots of music festivals with bands which people over 40 have never heard of, but not many where you can sit in a field and hear Juliet Stevenson reading a short story, or watch ballet on a stage built over a lake. And sometimes you can hardly hear what the people in the speaking tents are saying because of that thumping coming from one of those outside spaces for young people...turn it down!!! Still it's all part of the festival experience I suppose, and Latitude does manage to pull it off.
It was very wet this year, which is partly why we mainly stayed indoors, and there were good things on offer indoors, including good comedy, and the Film and Music tent where there were some PJ Harvey videos of her album LetEnglandShake (I must get that album). Now she is someone I've heard of! It's always hard choosing what to see when there are so many possibilities on at one time, but in some ways the rain made it easier, because we settled down and kept moves to a minimum. We had a bit of luck too, including going past the cabaret tent and catching the last few songs of a Beatles & Stones tribute band (I've heard of them too!), and coming across a small tent in the woods where there were 2 people just sitting there playing Bob Dylan songs...great!
After dark there was a very interesting projection on to a fountain which made a 3D TV effect. Maybe other people have seen it before but it impressed me. And I like seeing the sheep with their wool dyed interesting colours, I wonder whether they mind? If they made their way over to the knitting tent it would cut out the middle man!
Pete
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