Latitude Festival makes first comedy announcements

Latitude Festival have made their first lineup announcements for 2016.

The festival, which takes place Thursday 14 to Sunday 17 July 2016 in Henham Park, Suffolk, has released the first wave of acts for this year’s event, with its full comedy line-up announcement to follow in the coming weeks.

Latitude, which is now in its 11th year, is famed for its diverse and expansive arts programme, which features cabaret, theatre, performance art, poetry and literature alongside several music and comedy stages.

Among the first lot of comedy performers to be announced are Mel Giedroyc, Mark Thomas and Liam Williams.

Giedroyc, best known for fronting The Great British Bake Off, will appear in the Lyric Hammersmith’s The Importance of Being Earnest. Starring alongside comic Ed Gaughan, this work-in-progress production promises to be an irreverent, iconoclastic and deeply disrespectful celebration of the genius of Oscar Wilde, with Giedroyc and Gaughan taking on the challenge of playing every character in Wilde’s masterpiece.

Award-winning comedian and playwright Thomas will be appearing with his new play Red Shed – the story of the battle for hope and the survival of a community in a small wooden shed – the final part in a trilogy that began with Bravo Figaro and Cuckooed. Equal parts theatre, stand up, journalism and activism, Red Shed sees Thomas back at the place where he first started to perform in public, a red wooden shed in Wakefield, to celebrate the club’s 50th birthday.

Two-time Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee Williams will present his debut play, Travesty, in which a couple of young, slightly lost, middle-class people meet and don’t so much fall in love as cautiously negotiate their way into it.

This year’s soon-to-be-announced headliners will be in stellar company, with recent closers including Alan Davies, Jason Manford, Dara O’Briain, Jon Richardson, Al Murray, Simon Amstell and Kevin Bridges.

Tickets for the festival are available now.