Festival Fever: The Latitude Connection

The first hints of sunshine send thousands out into the fields and streets searching for entertainment, and the inboxes of theatre editors across the country fill up with the hopes and dreams of actors and writers. Burlesque dancers emerge from darkened halls and parade under canvas; opera singers find solace in the upper halls of bars. The festival season has begun.

In recent years, various festivals have sought to define themselves beyond the typical: the success of Glastonbury as a multi-arts event has encouraged others to offer more than music. Latitude has staked a claim as the ultimate middle-class festival: child-friendly, it has specific tents for cabaret and theatre, and even the National Theatre of Scotland are sending their award-winning musical play The Strange Undoing of Prudentia Hart.

Latitude has become a trail-blazer for a more inclusive festival. Capturing many acts before they hit The Fringe in August, the weekend is notable for both eclecticism – cabaret femme fatale Camille is on the same bill as Rambert Dance Company – and quality: the dance programme is driven by Sadler's Wells, London's home of cutting edge dance.

By using the festival platform to showcase more than bands, Latitude has developed an identity and aesthetic that suggests the meaning behind the festival fun. Rather than just trot out a series of crowd-pleasing rockers, it sets theatre, dance, cabaret, poetry and pop together, exploring connections and offering more moods than the glorious sing-along or mass mosh. It also cuts to the spirit of the festival, where experimentation thrives and possibilities open up.

Neil Murray, Executive Producer National Theatre of Scotland, explained why the NTS was heading south to Latitude. "Because they asked us!" he laughed. "It also coincided with a desire to remount Prudencia for the Edinburgh Fringe, so the timing was right."

Re-imagining ancient Scottish ballads, through the haunting refrains of Kylie Minogue and David Greig's rhyming rhythmic script, Prudencia was originally staged in bars across Scotland. Murray observes that "the strong musical element of the show felt a good fit for Latitude, as well as the inherent comedy. Also, it is not a precious theatre show to begin with – for example, we encourage the audience to have a drink! It felt robust enough for a festival."

Down in London, Sadler's Wells producer Emma Gladston is equally enthusiastic about leaving the theatre for a weekend – in their case, onto the beautiful Lakeside Stage. "The festival is a good way to get some of the great artists we work with to be seen in a different way," she says. "Although it's risky to perform outside (we have lost several performances to rain...) it also gives it a special feeling, more physical in a way, and we can make the music really loud which I love. The sound helps to wrap the dancers up when they have no lights or set."

For both the NTS and Sadler's Wells, it is not so much a case of creating new work, but finding new audiences for the work that they already support and create. "Much of our work tours into England," explains Murray. "It is an important market for us. There were no immediate plans to tour Pru to England, so this will be a good testing ground." And Gladston adds, "Three quarters of the bill are directly linked into our main programme – Rambert are regularly programmed here, and have been for years; ZooNation are showing a sneak preview of their new show, that opens here this autumn; and the many and wonderful performers in Fela! go straight from Latitude to a long run here over the summer. The one exception is the duet by Tommi Kitti, which I saw last year and felt would work a treat on that stage, especially as the music is by John Lee Hooker."

The influence of Latitude is even being felt in that venerable Scottish institution, T in the Park. After a preliminary foray last year, Glasgow cabaret dynamo – and theatre company in their own right – Rhymes with Purple are taking the sublime decadence of cabaret to a wider audience.

"We love a challenge," says compere Rufus T, "and when it comes to cabaret we like to think we are garnering a rep for challenging perceptions. TITP probably has the most diverse audience of any music fest in the UK so what better place to showcase cabaret?"

Rufus insists that there is an audience for cabaret at rock festivals. "Just looking at Glastonbury and Lattitude shows that there's a demand for alternative entertainment. Scottish audiences are the most demanding in the world so they deserve the best."

RWP have always been engaged with expanding the public understanding and definition of cabaret – they are behind the Glasgow Cabaret Festival, have been called the Godfathers of the cabaret revival, but Rufus' words could as well apply to the programming at Latitude.

"We are all about reinforcing the value of cabaret as a performance and entertainment discipline and the Cabaret Tent showcases our commitment to having cabaret associated with quality by doing something new and spectacular that can appeal and reach a wide audience.  Iy will let us show the TITP audience that cabaret is a discipline woven into the fibres of our performance heritage."

This mixture of evangelical energy and committment to originality is echoed in the words of Sadler's Wells Producer. "The vision is really for Sadler's Wells to commission, produce and tour work by today's artists to reach out to new audiences both in the UK and internationally," says Gladston. "It means we are not just presenting existing work, but helping to create new productions, to keep the art form moving forwards."

By accessing the festivals, and harnessing the power of inspired curation, the theatre and cabaret acts at Latitude bravely enter into new arenas. Up at T in the Park, favourites like Frisky and Mannish, Vendetta Vain and Cherry Loco will step out of the intimate and into the spectacular, forging new possibilities for the art form.

Now that festivals have become such a fixture in the summer calendar, they are becoming far more than a quick fix of too many bands and not enough toilet facilities. They can become multi-disciplinary events in their own right, encouraging audiences to experience the unfamiliar and drawing the natural connections between different art forms.