Gratitude for Latitude

Latitude Festival

Review and photos by Andy Richardson

If you tuned into BBC Radio during the weekend, chances are you'd have heard the stations DJs talking about Latitude. Claudia Winkleman, Dermot O'Leary, Steve Lamacq and Stuart Maconie were among the DJs broadcasting from the site.

Latitude is the UK's greatest celebration of contemporary culture and combines music, poetry, dance, literature, comedy, theatre and other visual arts during three glorious days.

It has the musical eclecticism of Glastonbury and the high brow literary appeal of Hay on Wye, not to mention the artsy appeal of the Tate Modern and the theatrical chutzpah of the National Theatre.

At no other festival are you likely to encounter music from Bombay Bicycle Club, Thom Yorke and the Pet Shop Boys, poetry recitals from Simon Armitage and Andrew Motion, theatre from some of the nation's finest young actors, ballerinas dancing to Swan Lake on a stage actually built on a lake, comedy from Mark Steel and Frank Skinner and talks from Vivienne Westwood and Sir Peter Blake.

This year's Latitude defied the storms that swept other parts of the UK and ran the

gamut from high brow to low brow with consummate ease. Claudia Winkleman unwittingly found herself involved in a sheep-painting incident, captured on video and relayed to the nation. The celebrated DJ was invited to apply colour to an obliging quadruped who, organisers emphasised, was not hurt in the process. At Latitude, pink sheep seem the most natural thing in the world. Well, Glastonbury has its cattle, so why ever not?