Friday
On arriving at ALSO Festival in Warwickshire, the first thing you notice is the lake which the festival backs onto and which, if you’ve remembered your swimming gear, you can take a dip in. Partially surrounded by woods, it provides a stunning backdrop to a festival that promises to get your mind working – this is after all a place ‘where ideas run wild.’
We pitch our tents for the weekend high above the festival – with two young children we decide it’s best for their sake, and the sake of any neighbours, that there is a little bit of distance between us and any late revellers.
After taking a tour of the site to get our bearings and grabbing some dinner, we make our way into the woods on the edge of the site where Rob Deering’s Beat This provides an early highlight of the weekend on The Woods stage. With a loop pedal at his feet and his own ‘Beat This’ theme tune, Deering’s gameshow pits two sets of celebrity guests, fellow ALSO performers, Robin Ince and Natalie Haynes against Marcel Lucont and Sarah-Louise Young.
It’s neck and neck throughout the show’s three rounds – with the teams trying to name the tracks of mash-up songs and medleys, played live by Deering, and a musical version of Taboo. Ince throws his entire being into the game and Lucont, wine in hand, provides the most striking imagery in this musical Taboo (“Man who bends his knee to touch a precious jewel” is used to describe Neil Diamond). Part way there is an impromptu, unprompted singalong to Whitesnake’s Here I Go Again. The weekend has begun.
Saturday
For breakfast, we treat ourselves to chocolate pastries from the Bar and coffee from one of the selection of food vendors. There are enough options to account for any taste – pizzas, pasta, seafood, vegetarian and vegan curries, healthy bowls, less healthy waffles, and, of course, there are beers, wines and spirits to go along with them. The pizza from Sam’s Pizza is a hit with both our kids and everyone else, judging by the queues.
The pick of today’s ideas sessions is arguably Philippa Perry, the psychotherapist and author of The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read, among others. And what Philippa Perry wants is some help – she wants us to provide the basis of her set on the ALSO Stage. It takes the form of a live agony aunt session from an official agony aunt (Perry is the resident agony aunt for the Observer).
Paper and pencils are passed around the audience for those who are willing to write down their specific personal problems. Perry recognises, she says, that it’s easier to do so anonymously – but that it also avoids long mic questions.
While that goes on we run through a few of Perry’s favourite aphorisms. If we have to choose between guilt and resentment, choose guilt, she tells us. The example of the expensive hen party in Paris that involves spending extra money on a special outfit but you don’t want to go to seems to ring particularly true for some audience members – Perry’s advice, by the way, is ‘don’t go.’
Similarly, many of the questions seem to ring true with the audience too – with knowing murmurs of agreement to a question from someone who is “‘working hard for a lifestyle I don’t love.” There’s lots of ‘how can I help someone,’ – Perry’s advice is usually ‘you can’t.’ She also gets to offer some rather unique answers. One question gets the entirely appropriate response: “‘Be an Olympic sailor,” says Perry.
Occasionally, the answer is to find a psychotherapist, which Perry says is “halfway between finding a partner and finding a doctor,” and not being afraid to change your psychotherapist if you don’t like them – “it’s too expensive not to.” Appropriately, there are plenty of ideas on offer for a festival based on ideas, and there are a few more aphorisms too. What is notable is that Perry’s answers are usually common sense – but, clearly, when it comes to personal problems, we rarely see sense.
We bump into Perry again later, in conversation with Sarah Ogilvie about The Dictionary People, Ogilvie’s new book. The term ‘outsiders’ we learn is first seen in a letter from Jane Austen discussing the attendees at a party that included a few of them.
Today also boasts comedian Sara Pascoe, who was due to perform here last year but had to withdraw due to illness. At that time she was then pregnant with her second child and, having now had the baby, she has plenty of views on parenthood in this preview performance of the new show she is developing. ‘Wanting to have children and having children have nothing in common,’ she tells us partway through the set which is essentially a list of hilarious complaints about her children and her husband… but mostly her children.
Afterwards, we take our children on the scavenger hunt around ALSO’s orrery to find the planets of the solar system hidden around the festival site – this year’s theme is ‘Heavenly Bodies’ and there is plenty to learn about the solar system these weekend. Some of the planets are spectacular, such as Uranus which is suspended high in the woods – as if floating amongst the trees – or the planet that looms impressively across the lake hovers on the opposite bank.
Later, we check out the ALSO All Stars, the festival talent show that highlights the community feel here. Although the festival “[encourages] all festival-goers (regardless of their speciality or age) to unleash their hidden talents,” it’s understandably a chance for the ALSO kids to strut their stuff or show off their vocal skills. Many are known to the host, judges and the crowd – festival regulars.
There’s a full band performance of Valerie, a dance to Beyonce’s Daddy Lessons and a rendition of Sweet Caroline that inspires a crowd sing-a-long. Luca performs his take on Nirvana, Jessie plays a new composition, Olivia gives us her best American accent for When He Sees Me from Waitress, while Stanley reads us a self-penned short story. The ALSO crowd greets them all with unrelenting enthusiasm.
The Saturday Night Extravaganza is another of the moments in the weekend where you feel the community of the festival. The universe has a message to deliver and some ALSO attendees have been preparing for this moment – there’s a choir and a dance, and a child is carried in on a palanquin by men in otherworldly costumes before we follow a procession to the pyre that is burnt. It’s a wonderful sight.
The community aspect feels integral to ALSO, though it has its positives and, if not negatives then, challenges. ALSO is part-staffed by ‘volunteers’ who pay a reduced rate in exchange for working a single shift across the weekend. They’re here to enjoy the festivities and help ensure there is a festival. They add to the feeling of collectiveness – we’re all here and we’re all part of it. The volunteers we meet are passionate about what they’re doing, whether it’s running messy play for the younger kids at The Stanley or running the bar for those who are young only at heart.
Still, as with all communities, things don’t always go smoothly: the Friday night all-ages disco doesn’t happen and the Stanley, the play area for under 4s, doesn’t quite keep to its advertised hours, opening later. The crazy golf set-up is a cheerily DIY creation but with only two clubs, two balls and no supervision, it is inevitably anarchaic – and by Sunday the flag pins are strewn across the course, having lost their flags at some point in the weekend.
It is perhaps emblematic of a small festival that has created such a strong sense of community – strangers frequently stop to talk to us and people are happy and open to each other’s company, which is heartening – but has found its popularity growing and is stretching to meet the demand of new attendees who, like us this weekend, come with kids attached.
That said, we come with two children under three, whereas other parents (for the most part) bring slightly older children who are more able to take part in a variety of other age-appropriate activities, such as raft building, den building mono-printing, and musical workshops. It is, to be clear, not a complaint but something that those with very young children may want to consider – as you would with most festivals.
As the extravaganza continues, and with the kids in bed, I nip out solo to the Woods Stage to see Adam Kay. He is recalling tales from his time as a junior doctor, all of which seem to involve bodily fluid. There is humour in the shocking, and it has proved popular with Kay’s memoir, This is Going to Hurt, becoming a best-seller which was adapted into a television show, starring Ben Whishaw as Kay.
With most of the set involving Kay reading excerpts (he describes them as ‘stories’) from the book, those who have already read his work may have found themselves disappointed. Having bought the book for others but having failed to read it yet myself, I get the most from the set, even if ‘stories’ about a vomit-stained bath mat, Kay’s ‘worst wank,’ and peanut butter as a vaginal lubricant begin to feel same-y, despite their very obvious differences.
Then, with the sound of The Fontanas bringing soul on an unseasonably cold evening on the ALSO Stage (and trying to forget about the peanut butter) we retire to our tent for the night.
Sunday
When we rise on Sunday for an early morning sound bath, the embers of last night’s fire are still burning. It’s unclear how late the other of this morning’s attendees were out last night but there’s a dedicated group here for an immersive experience that includes moments of vocal harmonies amongst the traditional instruments of the sound bath practice, such as Tibetan singing bowls and chimes. Admittedly, the vocals draw you out of the mindful practice – a slight distraction, even if it soon passes.
I follow it up with a trip to the on-site sauna – a small wooden mobile structure – one of the festival’s paid-for experiences. Due to a later start than advertised, it’s just warming itself up for the day when I arrive. After a slight delay, it warms me too as I gaze out of the sauna window across the lake. Of the other paid-for experiences, my wife also takes in the flower crown workshop and though we eye up many of the others, we decide the food experiences aren’t quite child-appropriate, though there is a nanny service available for any parents who wish to avail of it.
Post-sauna, I find myself revitalised and in the zone that ALSO wants us – ready to soak up whatever comes – so we take a more lassie-faire approach to the Sunday programming, wandering between stages depending on what takes our fancy at that moment – which has favourable results.
We drop in on the end of Steve Pretty’s conch bath session as we wait for Storytime with Mama G. Pretty is combining conch shells with electronic effects to create a sound bath – the outcome, the reverberating echo of the conch shells, seems more meditative than our early morning session – an ambient soundtrack that recalls Brian Eno’s Ascent (An Ending), Jon Hopkins or even Hans Zimmer’s Interstellar soundtrack.
Mama G, a pantomime dame, follows Pretty and gives us a much-needed energy boost with a set full of fun stories, positive messages and songs that get both the kids and adults, including the line for the coffee van, singing along. After one last sing-along to a rewritten YMCA, the kids queue up, ready for a photo with their new star, Mama G.
We meander back to the main stage for the end of Robin Ince, with our arrival coinciding with a recital of his most recent composition, a poem for Judi Dench inspired by her practice of planting trees for people who have died – “she talks of oak, of yew and ash.” In each tree, he tells us, a little piece of the person lives on. It’s a poignant moment – another idea to take with you.
Ince is followed by Catherine Nixey’s talk about the origins of her new book, Heresy! She talks of growing up with her parents, a former monk and a former nun, and how, by chance, through the passages of history, we have ended up with the Jesus Christ we recognise today. She also utters the line of the weekend about the effects of growing up in an incredibly religious household: “I didn’t just think Halloween wicked, I thought it was American.”
Somewhat apologetically we shuffle off as Nixey is getting into the meat of her talk (via ALSO’s onsite bookshop at the back of the arena to pick up a copy of Nixey’s book) to the woods, having set ourselves on catching Steve Pretty’s The Origin of the Pieces, a live edition of his podcast.
Pretty is currently working his way through the 1334 musical genres listed on Wikipedia, selecting one at a time to create an episode around – he spent his Christmas listening to ‘Death Core’ in his dedication to the random generator he’s using to pick genres, some of which are the result of genres meeting and evolving – the Darwin allusion in the podcast title is appropriate. “When one musical tradition meets another, interesting things happen,” Pretty says.
We’re treated to the live selection of the next genre (look out for the tech trance edition!) before he is joined on stage by his guest for today, Juliet Russell, a co-founder and former Creative Director of the Also festival, who is also a vocal coach, choir director and composer who has worked with acts from Gorillaz to M.I.A to Radiohead’s Philip Selway, for a conversation about choral singing and the voice as an instrument.
And then it’s back to the arena area for some food and to contemplate the ideas we’ve picked up over the weekend before we head home. What is noteworthy is, that despite its billing as a ‘posh’ festival, it is incredible value for money. Early bird tickets for 2025 are already on sale and cost just £99 for up to three nights of camping and an incredible lineup (if this year is anything to go by).
Yes, you can quickly drive the price up if you decide to take in multiple paid-for experiences or opt for glamping over bringing your own tent – but you can have a great time paying £12 for the sauna as your only extra as I did, or even eschewing the extras entirely and satisfying yourself with the speakers and performances and the free yoga, sound baths, runs and lake swims.
As we depart on Sunday evening, we think about what we missed over the three days. Oh well, there’s always next year – we’re part of a community now.
ALSO Festival returns in 2025, running from 11 to 13 July with early bird tickets now on sale
