Interview with Latitude Festival booker Tania Harrison

Latitude Festival in Suffolk is celebrating its 10th birthday this year. Over the last decade the laid-back event has established itself as not only a provider of good music, but also as one of the best places to see live comedy.

This year's dates will see an impressive comedy line-up taking to the stages, with headlines like Jason Manford, Alan Davies and Jon Richardson appearing alongside a host of circuit favourites.

As Arts Curator for Latitude, Tania Harrison has the task of booking 100 plus comedy acts to appear at the festival each year. We find out more from her below.

Hi Tania. Now the 2015 line-up has now nearly fully being announced, presumably things have calmed down a bit in your office?

Not yet. I look after 13 stages... I know it sounds big, and it does seem very manageable when it's just a number... but when you start booking and you get really inside of it, it just seems to get bigger as you go along, when you realise everything that you have to do. I'm at the stage of, "Oh my God, I don't think I'm ever going to be able to finish this or to get this done."

You've been booking stuff for the festival for a while now, and it's become a massive event: did you ever expect Latitude to get this big?

Actually, I was just thinking about that. There's 18 stages altogether now by the way...

I remember it was a few weeks before the first ever Latitude, and John who used to book the music stages with me just turned and said to me, "Tania, what if it turns out that nobody likes what we like?" That was a really heart-pounding moment, particularly I think for my CEO, who was possibly much more concerned about that than he was about me having a heart attack, because obviously it was a massive financial risk.

I think it was quite hard in the beginning. Well, it was very nice in the beginning because, in amongst all the mistakes, we were doing something very different. I think that Glastonbury had embraced many different arts, but I think there was a real focus on the production level at Latitude. So many stages, and in particular, bespoke productions...

I think to introduce fully bespoke stages with their own decor, designs, particularly for that art form, into a field - that's something I think people forget [we did]. If you have all of these venues, the Cabaret tent etc, which have everything in-house, you actually have to build from scratch a full production - it's incredibly expensive and takes a lot of thought. We've learned a lot over the years, and in particular, I think one of our biggest challenges was staging the dance on the waterfront, on the lake...

What was that?

This particular idea, which actually does make me laugh now in a way, is that I wanted to put dance on the lake because I thought it would look fabulous if these dancers looked like they were dancing on water (in a glass box). My boss was not so keen - it was so expensive! Also, in all honesty, they would have got a bit hot in the box. It could have got a bit steamy!

We did it in a way though. We got a lovely stage on the waterfront, which I think for the dancers is an incredible experience because they're used to dancing actually in a black box, and to actually dance in the open air without walls is apparently really quite liberating. It's also quite incredible, I think, for audiences because it's on that bridge. If dance is not a genre that you would ordinarily go to you could just experience it there, you might just be walking past it. In fact, I have to say, it's one of my favourites ever at the festival...

It always makes me feel quite emotional when I talk about it, because Mumford & Sons had played on the main stage, and there were huge crowds coming over the bridge and going towards the campsite to get changed, ready to go out that night, and what happened is they stopped. They just watched this beautiful show on the water front. Everybody was transfixed and spellbound by this wonderful show, Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake. Yeah, it's making me cry. It still makes me!

You've had a few interesting events at Latitude...

I remember I was going over to the poetry, I think to see Adrian Mitchell. I thought, "Everything's fine in the comedy. That's all okay. Check, check." I was walking across, and then I glanced to my right, and I thought, "Oh my God. What is that mass activity coming off the comedy arena? What's happening?"

You always think the worst. I could just see like hundreds and hundreds of people coming out of the comedy arena. Then I saw Ross Noble's hair streaming behind him, like the Pied Piper of Comedy, leading the way. Everyone is following him. I had to call on the radio: "Don't worry about the 2,000 people prancing across the arena. It's one of my acts. Don't worry, I'll take care of it!"

Anyway, Ross led everybody in front of a stand selling vegetarian food and got everyone to chant "Sausage rolls! Sausage rolls!". It was like, "Oh my gosh!" It's funny in hindsight, but it was another heart attack moment for me.

You've got a TV format joining you this year... The Last Leg. Will that work?

We've done a live version of Never Mind The Buzzcocks at Latitude, so I know it's entirely feasible, and I think failure was not really in mind. I spoke with their agent, and then we talked about it last June about possibly doing it live, and Adam Hills is really fabulous and so is Josh Widdicombe and Alex Brooker. They're great guys and they're up for anything and I think that helped, but because they know what they're doing and they've got that format and they've done festivals, it wasn't actually such a big leap I suppose...

Whilst the festival is known for booking big names like Ross Noble and this year The Last Leg gang, a whole host of up-and-coming talent also gets to perform. How do you pick who to book? Do you head to the clubs, or go by word of mouth? Do you see everyone before the festival starts?

Oh, good God, I have! There's a couple of people actually, a couple of newbies, I've booked on word of mouth... but I've pretty much seen everybody, because it's also important when you're programming to ensure they're in the right space.

I go to Edinburgh and see hundreds of shows. Actually, not hundreds, I'd say about a hundred. I shouldn't exaggerate. But like Funz And Gamez and things like that... I'm like "That's a brilliant show, let's put that on!" A lot of my work in terms of picking acts is done during Edinburgh in all honesty.

I don't know how I start though, that's a very good question. I guess the way I start is I book who I like. That's where I start, and I think it's a pretty good place to start.

Obviously I have to have varying names and sizes of act, because it's different in Cabaret... I've got comedy bloody everywhere this year to be honest. I've got Jack Dee in the Theatre, Ruby Wax in the Literary Arena...

I've got a whole little system which actually is helpful, I think, for moving people around in the comedy arena, so other people can get in. You've got two acts, and then a headliner, and then an interval so people can move around and other people can move in and get a little spot. It's a lot easier than people think. They'll go, "Oh, I can't get in," but that's just because they're looking at the back of the tent, rather than the sides... You can always move around in the interval and get to see who you want.

The comedy tent is getting rather popular nowadays, and has been extended with a screen each side. From our point of view, it's brilliant people are now picking comedy over music more and more, but it can't get much bigger can it?

I know, but you know what, that's why I think it's also really lovely having comedy on in different stages. There's something for loads of different people at any one time, and I love that people fully embrace the comics and that they can go and see newer acts in the Cabaret Arena, or even new acts in smaller spaces. We're doing it in the forest this year too.

I guess we've got a lot of old sofas and things near the Comedy Arena and people sit down and put their picnic out. Maybe we'll just have to pack the picnic stuff away to make some space for more people. I don't know, but it's certainly getting much bigger. I think it's a nice size, you want to still keep an intimacy, don't you? Make it feel warm. It's great that people like it though.

You've got a notable number of female performers this year, when some other festivals have been in the press for failing to book any.

What do I say? To be honest, like I say, I book who I like. I think all festivals, in a lot of ways, they have their own identity, and that is very reflective of the booker. Like John said to me all those years ago, "What if nobody likes what we like?"... I don't really think about people gender-wise, it's certainly not a deliberate thing that I do, because I think that would just be strange.

It's be equally weird going "I need a male poet here", or "a male author". I just really book who I like and it is absolutely down to merit. It just so happens that Katherine Ryan, Sofie Hagen, Roisin Conaty, Aisling Bea, Tiffany Stevenson... I just think they're fucking funny. Like I said, I try to book my favourite comics. The more the merrier for me!

You know what? Whenever I am really busy and I'm running around the festival dealing with problems or whatever, I love popping into the comedy tent just to give me a little shot of joy. So this year I will get a shot of joy from Nick Helm, a shot of joy from Katherine Ryan, a shot of joy from Guilty Pleasures, and a shot of joy from the girls on the water front. It depends what you find funny, and they're I guess who I think are funny right now.

Latitude Festival 2015 take place from 16th - 19th July at Henham Park, Suffolk. For tickets and line up information see latitudefestival.co.uk