So Glastonbury is over and Edinburgh just under a month away and the collective attention of the arts community turns to Suffolk and Latitude. In only five years Latitude has become a truly significant event in the nation’s cultural calendar, although attended by a relatively small number of people the Festival engenders an almost fanatical following amongst its many fans. The most common insight into its success offered by such fans is that Latitude resembles a more relaxed European festival, a more mature and diverse experience than any alternative UK offering.
 
It is certainly true that in no other domestic festival has such a range of top class arts entertainment been available in such a small space. It is possible to watch several varieties of music followed by some top class comedy, theatre and poetry, not to mention cabaret within a surprisingly small area. All of this can be overwhelming and lead to you lounging by the lake in truly beautiful surroundings, which is of course yet another option in itself. The theatre community in particular relishes the opportunity to get out of its hot, dark buildings for the summer and showcase its enthralling entertainments in a more alternative environment; it embraces the festival spirit with especial vigour and ‘Latitude’ stories and connections are talked about for months afterwards in rehearsal rooms around the country.
 
The especial beauty of the Suffolk countryside within which Latitude can be found is a particular boon for the Festival. Unlike the large open dusty or muddy plains upon which other festivals are staged, the Latitude site boasts a lake, copious woodland and many small rises and dips and the festival makes great use of the sites various topological locales by staging a number of events by the side of the water or deep in the woods. The now yearly pilgrimage to the Suffolk countryside is indicative of the cultural explosion that is currently evident in the county. As well as Latitude and the venerable Aldeburgh Festival there is a groundswell of artistic endeavour that is becoming increasingly noticed and lauded by the country at large, for example there is the tremendously exciting Hightide Festival in Halesworth, the world’s first producing festival of new plays and the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival.
 
The location of Hightide in Suffolk is indicative of the importance of having important arts organisations outside of the Capital and the increasing need for co-productions in theatre. Because of the scarcity of funds in the theatre world companies need to band together in order to mount productions; Hightide has become the favoured partner of many prestigious National theatre companies and as a result some of the nation’s best theatre makes its way to Suffolk in May.
 
Hightide takes its identity as a Suffolk company seriously and takes evident pride in representing the county’s arts scene as it tours both nationally and internationally. Hightide will be taking ‘Lidless’ to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this year where the company will be joined by a host of others from the east of England thanks to the Arts Council initiative ‘Escalator: east to Edinburgh’. The sheer number of companies from Suffolk and its neighbours taking the trip north of the border this summer demonstrates how significant the growth in the county’s cultural life really is.
 
But before Edinburgh there is Latitude and if you make the journey to the theatre tent on a hot summer’s afternoon in Suffolk you’ll be certain to find a host of great work; and Hightide doing something different in the middle of it all.