toulson and harvey

Amelia’s Magazine | The Festival Arts Scene 2010

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I’m not the best person to be covering the arts events of this summer, healing taking place at a smattering of festivals across the UK. The reason for this is quite simple; I have never been to a festival. This is usually when someone drops a plate, another person screams and a cat yowls whilst an errant piece of tumbleweed dances down the road.
Alright, I haven’t been to a festival! I have a total and utter phobia of insects, I can’t sleep well at the best of times and the idea of being zipped into a stuffy hot tent with the floor as my mattress has never had much appeal to me. Plus all the mud and the hygiene issues of finding a nice lavatory. But this year, one name has sung it’s siren call. The power of this one name has rendered me ebaying portable mosquito nets and stocking up on wetwipes. No, it’s not one of those musician types, for whom I can hear on the noisebox at any time I please, it is a man. A man who changed my life. Brett Easton Ellis. When I saw his name on the Latitude Literary Area line-up, I choked half to death on my hobnob (that’s not an allegory). The man behind Less Than Zero, one of my favourite books, and American Psycho (another favourite book) is flying over from his elusive bunker somewhere in New York, to grace the filthy muddy bastards of Latitude with his presence? Inconceivable. Yet, I don’t think they’d lie about a thing like that. Ergo, I must go. Like a sacrificial festival virgin to a vengeful insect fuelled Aztec God, I must go. Sebastian Faulks and Julie Burchill are also included in the programme, but my eye stopped roaming at Ellis, and thus my summer has been made.

Anyway, the point of this all, is to focus on the Arty side of these godforsaken pagan events. Evidently, I’m not one who has much knowledge about all of this, but I’ve certainly been doing my homework since. Latitude is one of the best Arts forward festivals in the UK, with a film, poetry, literary and theatre arenas to tickle all sorts of fancy’s alongside the usual barbaric muck and ruckus that I also imagine goes on. And also, there’s The Secret Garden Party.


Upon checking out the website for Secret Garden Party, I immediately found myself sold on the idea of going to a magical little wonderland to moot about and have a lovely time free of bugs and dirt. Also, the art line up is pretty fantastical. The Never-Ever Land Theatre has a rotisserie of performers and theatrics from companies such as MOD theatre and Toulson and Harvey. The Artful Badger area includes ‘shamanic journeys, drumming and whittling’ as part of the agenda.

Written by Amica Lane on Tuesday April 27th, 2010 2:57 pm

Categories ,brett easton ellis, ,bugs, ,festivals, ,latitude, ,mod theatre, ,sebastian faults, ,Secret Garden Party, ,summer, ,tents, ,toulson and harvey

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