Spellbinding shows at Latitude

It says something about the power of live theatre that a 500‑seat tent in the middle of a field was filled to overflowing at midnight on Saturday.

The "theatre event", staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company, was inspired by a recent discovery at Henham Park, the 800-acre private estate near Southwold where Latitude is staged. A mass grave, believed to be that of locals accused of witchcraft in the mid 17th century, was found, and a semi-staged play with a narrator was woven around this. It was, no pun intended, spellbinding.

The theatre programme has been growing steadily in Latitude’s four-year existence (its main space double 2008’s size) and it has astonishing pulling power — as well as the RSC, the National, Bush, Lyric and Paines Plough brought productions here.

English Touring Theatre and the Young Vic staged Che Walker’s Been So Long, which finished its run in London only last week, and the Lyric created a new show, Supernova by Simon Stephens, especially for Latitude under the direction of new artistic director Sean Holmes. Both were vibrant and a reminder that good theatre can be done anywhere.

Much pleasure was to be had coming across pop-up works around the Park, but my favourite space is the self-descriptive In the Woods theatre, where I saw Chipping Norton Theatre’s Play, three delightful collaborations between writers and musicians.

Latitude Festival