Little Lark of London

“There’s life in this mud.”

Glastonbury tells the story of four older adults who have an annual tradition of traveling to the Glastonbury Festival, a five-day “contemporary performing arts” festival in Somserset, England. Staying in the yurt accommodations on the campsite, Dorian, Dave, Matt and Sue (There was no programme so I am unable to credit the cast and creative team) spend the hour talking about their relationships with one another. 

Dave, arguably the main character of the quartet, has an obsession with Glastonbury and is the driving force in bringing everyone to the festival each year. His wife, Sue, reveals that she is not the biggest fan of Glastonbury, which leads to some tension between the couple. But that’s not the only conflict – it appears that there is something going on between Dave and Dorian, even though Dorian is married to Matt (though neither of them seem particularly happy in this relationship). Everything is explained through exposition-heavy dialogue, with nothing being left to the imagination. 

Even though there is already tension between the main four, the plot thickens when youngsters Vez and Sky break into the yurt, clearly on some kind of drugs. This leads to a debate about older versus younger generations in which both sides of the argument are made to look like idiots, which is a shame as this is a topic that could be fascinating if explored beyond biting remarks and sassy comments. What happens when all six of these festival attendees are faced with a crisis? 

One of the interesting choices made by the writing team was to have each character give a dramatic rendition of a song after each of the scenes. Some have backing tracks while others are performing acapella, which leads to some mixed results. I found these moments to have zero impact as they were simply summarising the character’s emotions from the previous scene. Characters tend to perform in musicals when they cannot describe how they are feeling in words, not to give a retelling of what the audience has already witness, so the performances fall quite flat. 

The show ends with a time skip, revealing the loss of one of the characters and the effect that it has had on the friend group. The final scene is a dramatic reading of the lyrics of David Bowie’s “Blackstar” that left audience members awkwardly sitting, unsure whether they were allowed to laugh or not at the sheer absurdity of the situation. It had the potential to be a more emotional moment as a goodbye to one of the characters and a way to explore grief, but instead comes off as a slightly ridiculous bit. 

Ultimately, Glastonbury has an interesting concept but struggles in allowing the audience to connect with the characters, making them all quite unlikable. Quite a few of the actors stumbled over their lines and at times felt as though they were disinterested in the work, simply performing for performance’s sake. The ending could certainly have much more of an emotional impact if time is given to exploring the people visiting Glastonbury instead of a few monologues and some music. But, as Dave says, “There’s life in this mud,” and there is potential for something better within the concept of this show. 

Glastonbury ran at the Riverside Studios Bitesize Festival from 3 to 4 February. For more information on the Bitesize Festival, click here.