Latitude Festival 2013 - Comedy Preview

With summer well and truly here now, it feels like we can properly start thinking about attending weekend festivals (we're not keen on mud here at BCG you see, hence the wait). One of the biggest this summer is Latitude Festival at Henham Park in Suffolk, which takes place across this forthcoming weekend.

Latitude is, as always, serving up an impressive music line-up (Bloc Party, Kraftwerk, Foals and Hot Chip are amongst the headliners), and there are other interesting genres on offer too - like a food arena which will combine cookery demonstrations from top chefs with some food-related performances - but it's the comedy that we're obviously most interested in here at BCG!

Eddie Izzard (pictured here inappropriately with an umbrella) is the name at the top of the posters this year - he's been busy entertaining audiences around the world with his distinctive comedy style, so will be well warmed up to bring some laughs to Latitude. But which other comedians are at the festival this year? Let's have a look...

Eye catching big names on the bill include Dylan Moran, Russell Kane and Sean Lock. The 8 Out Of 10 Cats funnyman has been a particular BCG favourite for a number of years, so try and catch his set on Friday if you can.

There's lots of other recognisable comedy faces due to appear in the Comedy Arena too - look out for Lee Nelson, Mark Watson, Nina Conti (currently starring in Family Tree), Richard Herring and Shappi Khorsandi. Josh Widdicombe and Seann Walsh, two comedians who have rapidly been rising up the fame ladder this year (Walsh is currently presenting Seann Walsh World on Comedy Central; and Widdicombe returns to Channel 4 soon for another series of the warm and funny The Last Leg), are definitely worth catching too.

Try and make time for some names you might not have heard of, but we can confirm are definitely very funny people. Welsh comic Elis James is one of the nicest and funniest comedians we've met; Joe Lycett is a TV-star in the making; Matt Rees won just about every new act competition going a year or so back; Trevor Noah is a super-slick comic from South Africa; Simon Evans' posh act will go down brilliantly here; and France's Marcel Lucont (who you might have seen on Live At The Electric) is a very funny character act from British comic Alexis Dubus (yup Marcel is actually English!).

Oh, and there's a comedian called Daniel Kitson performing too. If you follow the live comedy circuit you'll know exactly what that means - if you don't, suffice to say he's the comedian almost every comedian aspires to be.

We've not got space to mention the full line-up here, so do jump onto the Latitude site and head to the Comedy page to see that.

So, in summary, if you've already got Latitude tickets you're in for a great weekend, but if you haven't and don't yet have any plans for this weekend, it's not too late to jump in a car, and head towards Suffolk.

Here's a suggestion though, instead of camping why not hotel it!?! You get the best of both worlds then. All the fun of the festival, but without any of the festival pains - no having to put up with snoring in the camp site, no waking up sweaty in a baking tent, no trek for the loo - but lots of benefits like a hot ensuite shower and a decent cooked breakfast instead. Plus the chance to head to the coast too in amongst your plans, to cool off and get an ice cream? Two check in options are The Holiday Inn in Norwich or Colchester's Holiday Inn.

Whatever you do this weekend, don't forget the sun protection and keep those drinks ice cool!

Day tickets to Latitude cost £77.50. For more information and the full line-up visit www.latitudefestival.co.uk

This post was sponsored by Holiday Inn, but the benefits of using a hotel are our own words. Call us soft if you want - we'll be the ones looking clean and refreshed ;-)