Lodestar Festival 2012

The Lodestar Festival is awesome - it's a growing music festival just outside of Cambridge that I have the privilege of being the Director Of Theatre for. I'm not long back from spending the whole of my weekend at this year's event and once again I'm just amazed by how lovely the whole festival is, so incredibly friendly. This is my third year with Lodestar and in short my role is to book the comedy/theatre acts for the second stage - I'd like to think that every year our line-up is getting just a little bit better and although I was honestly worried about how this one would work out it really did, brilliantly. My fears were that we had to re-schedule a couple of the acts at really short notice, such short notice that programmes had been printed already with the wrong information (it's a festival - it's bound to happen sometimes with this many acts), but there were no worries really at the end of the day - we put plenty of acts on, people walked in to our tent and enjoyed them. The tent this year was a circus style big-top tent and was absolutely perfect - a good distance from the main stage so no chance of being drowned out by the bands, and undercover so no chance of being drowned in the rain.

Alongside booking the non-music stuff, two of my own pieces were performed; There's Absolutely Nothing Wrong With Oscar Pike on the Saturday, and You Don't Miss Your Water today - Sunday. This has always been scheduled as the final performance of this Oscar show - having started our little adventure a couple months back in Bristol before Cambridge (twice), London and of course the Edinburgh Fringe, it's a show that really has developed nicely along the way. Saturday felt like a challenge at first - due to the size of the stage (huge), the distance between us and the audience, and due to both of these things the fact that we had to do the show with radio mics so we would be heard. That's a first for me as a performer, and it took a couple minutes to adjust, but we soon settled into it. In a strange kind of way it felt like an important performance - there was a pretty big crowd there to watch us, bigger than any of the previous showings, yet we hadn't rehearsed since the fringe. But we know this show inside out now and if anything it was one of our most comfortable performances yet, even if (in the final scene where I knock the 'David' picture over) I did smash the photo frame with glass everywhere, that almost felt like a spectacular conclusion to this production. Izzy and Grace were both fantastic - they seemed relaxed enough pretty much straight from the start. Waiting before the show, in character (ie; in my pyjamas) I looked at the audience and there was a real sense of expectation in the air, I found out later on our play was announced on the main stage by the lovely people at BBC Radio Cambridgeshire who recommended us, hence why we suddenly had a big turnout. As I was pacing about around the back, people in the audience could see us and a couple even took pictures; difficult to explain but for the first time I actually felt like a 'proper' performer, this was a 'proper' act, that people wanted to see. I got a buzz out of that. I don't think there can be any more Oscar Pike shows though unless I suddenly get a big idea, feels like I've done all I can with this character. Either way, it went down well, and quite a few strangers (including a random bunch of girls who approached me later in the evening at the festival) praised the quality of the piece. A good day for my ego.

Today we debuted a comedy musical I had written as a vehicle for Bristol-based blues band, The Outlines. This has been on the cards for a while now, The Outlines were keen to play the festival so I suggested that I write a script to go alongside their awesome tunes and we can make a proper theatre show out of it. I only know one Outline - the legendary Matt Corrall, but the whole band went along with this idea. I then kind of ran out of time when it came to writing the script, and although the format and structure had been knocking about in my head for a couple weeks I didn't finish writing the thing until the early hours of Thursday morning. It took 6 hours to write...it shouldn't have worked really, but 'You Don't Miss Your Water' really did. A majority of the cast, and the band, only saw the script for the first time yesterday morning, that was how tight we were cutting things...we had a slightly worrying run-through on a patch of field before Oscar Pike, and then this morning did the same thing again, with most of us having hangovers. The rehearsals - well, I think 'rehearsals' is probably an exaggeration, these were just a chance to get vaguely familiar with the script, were worrying. So why did it work in the performance? Simple really; The Outlines are a brilliant - and more importantly, likable, band that have songs that work so well in this medium, and we had a cracking cast of Izzy, Abi, Alan, Vaughan and Kevin, who were just so open to the 'anything can happen' nature of this show, a joy to work with. There were glimmers of really, really perfect moments in the production, mostly thanks to Vaughan's slightly erratic dancing, and none of which were apparent in the rehearsal, and the band were super-tight, that was apparent in the rehearsal. Yeah, it was thrown together at short notice and could have looked that way to some of the audience, but with a lot of enthusiasm and charm that made me proud. And I have to admit, considering it only took 6 hours to write, I was rather happy with the script - it's as cheesy as anything, but with some nice lines and serves it's purpose perfectly. But in lesser hands it wouldn't have worked - with The Outlines and that cast it did, but then again if you put that much talent on one stage you can't really fail, can you?

Not that it was all about us/me of course; our stage was littered with treats. Helen Arney, in particular - I know she's a mate so I'm biased, but she was outstanding on Saturday, playing at midday it could have gone either way but she played a truely delightful set and the audience lapped it up. Other great stuff - Custard Comedy (a really fine range of new comedians), Rosie Wilby, The Cambridge Improv Factory, The Gamlingay Players. We also caught a bit of Bob Geldof's headline set on the main stage, and watched some burlesque which made me feel all awkward.

Over the years I've started to go off music festivals, big and small, mostly because they're hard work sometimes - they get overcrowded, rowdy, uncomfortable. But Lodestar is different - it is without question the nicest festival in the country, with really good quality acts (gutted that due to my comittments I couldn't really catch much of the music on the main stage but whenever I did pass it looked wonderful, The Go Team on Friday night were outstanding), and all the simple things we forget about like reasonably priced beer and plenty of different food options. It's a festival where you can stretch out a bit, it's on a really attractive site and it's run by geniuene, honest people. And selfishly, it's a great creative outlet for me too - Doug the director gives me a lot of freedom to book the acts I want and to put on my own work, and I'm grateful for this. I'm also knackered though as it kicks into life four days after the Edinburgh Fringe, and tonight - our final night - we chickened out and left at 6pm, my brain is frazzled from a manic couple of weeks and I admit - I've run out of steam. My friends are as nice as the festival by the way, whilst I've been running around worrying about the acts they do great things like set up my tent for me, and even take it down, it's almost like they know I'm not a typical outdoor type.

I think I'm happy right now, I'm knackered but when I wake up a bit I think I'll realise I am happy - it's been a good couple of months what with the musical, the tour, the fringe, the festival. It's weird not suddenly having to dash about somewhere, my inbox is cleared for the first time this year. Time for new projects, I have many ideas both theatrically and musically, and many ideas of who I want to do them with. And Christmas seems to be creeping up on us too...this quiet period won't last for long, phew!