Theatre and festivals. Two words that go together like chalk and cheese. Or cheese and chutney, depending on how you spread your bread.

As the falafel of sexual freedom is dropped in to the curdling sleeping bag of time and the cider press of normality is installed upon the pyramid stage of al fresco drug-taking, Glastonbury is once again put to bed for the year. The bands have de-bunked, the tents have been trampled and the world of performing arts can creep home to wash its knickers.

And if by “performing arts” you think I exclusively mean music then, frankly, you’re an asshat. A grade-A clown. Performing at festivals embraces the world of art like a fat man at an Oasis gig embraces fighting. From cabaret to Kafka, poetry to Pinter, circus skills to Shakespeare, the opportunities for outdoor staging has come a long way in the last 10 years.

This is due, in part, to the mushroom-like sprouting of so many smaller, more speciality festivals. Since its inception, Latitude has had a literary arena, a theatre tent, a poetry area, not to mention a cabaret auditorium and waterside stage, alongside the various music stages showing everything from Radio 2 classics to Scandinavian surreal electronica. This isn’t theatre tokenism; it’s stage play.

Now, as someone for whom a come down is something you do on a slide and a pill is something you take in order to throw yourself in to a state of hormonally deranged contraception, I can’t tell you what it’s like to have a mind-altering festival experience. But I imagine that watching Paines Plough’s production of Kate Tempest’s new play or the Bush Theatre’s The Flooded Grave as night falls will be pretty ruddy exciting, whether or not you’ve ingested a dishwater tablet.

But, as Alan Partridge will tell you, life doesn’t begin and end with Suffolk. There are theatre festivals across the country including Spill, NSDF, Green Man, Bestival, Secret Garden Party, Shambala and our very own Coming Up, filling your earholes with comedy, theatre, cabaret, burlesque and even the odd piece of promenade interactive surrealism (to coin a polysyllable phrase). Oh, and HighTide, which is also in Suffolk (sorry Alan).

Of course, it would be criminally negligent to write an article about theatre at festivals without mentioning that megalith of performing arts we call Edinburgh. Well, we call it Edinburgh. The Scottish probably call it Guildford. Anyway, when it comes to making a fiesta out of a burrito, Edinburgh certainly knows its shit. For a month the entire city is overwhelmed by a festival of theatre so huge it would make Highlander’s Sean Connery fill his kilt. From comedy to theatre, with every other stage activity in between, it is a thesp fest to boggle the mind and twitch the eye.

And guess who’ll be there this year? Us of course! IdeasTap are taking over the basement of Underbelly at this year’s festival, offering you world weary wanders somewhere to check your mail, freshen up and have a little IdeasTap TLC.

So, for more details, make like Galileo and watch this space.

Coming Up Later is at The Old Vic Tunnels from Thursday 7 to Saturday 9 July 2011. Book your free tickets by emailing “Guest List” to comingup@ideastap.com. Find out more on the Coming Up hub.

Illustration by Narcsville

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