TRUCK FESTIVAL | Festival News

HILL FARM, STEVENTON, OXFORDSHIRE22nd - 24th JULY 2011

Theatre, comedy, cabaret, Boxford and more bands for Truck Festival

We remember the days when all that was to be found at Hill Farm over the Truck Festival weekend were indie bands, vicars selling tea and cross-dressing bar staff….

The Oxford Playhouse Plays Out at Truck Festival

In 2010, the director of Oxford Playhouse came to Hill Farm for the first time and enjoyed it so much she called up Truck HQ asking to be involved. The festival organisers were delighted, pleased to expand Truck’s remit beyond music even further and continue their mission to build community through music and the arts.

As part of the company’s Plays Out series which brings theatre productions to less formal locations, Oxford Playhouse will be hosting a theatre tent at Truck with a twice daily production of One Small Step. The play, by David Hastings, magically conjures dozens of characters with the aid of simple household objects. Festival goers are urged to check their oxygen, adjust their spacesuits and buckle up for the biggest mission of their lives – an action-packed, full-throttled trip to the moon. Fast, furious and really rather funny, this superb show has been around the world and back again and collected rave reviews from the Sunday Times (“Utterly engaging” ****), Time Out (“A life-affirmingly brilliant piece of theatre” *****) and the Daily Telegraph (“Silly, stirring, inspiring stuff”).

Roustabout Theatre will present an adaptation of My Secret Garden created by Toby Hulse and inspired by the Frances Hodgson Burnett novel. Calling all the families and young gardeners on site, they will enter a secret garden that can only be reached through a hidden door. A long abandoned garden awaits them on the other side where everything can be brought back to life through digging deep in the earth and uncovering the treasures that lie buried in the soil. A magical, muddy adventure for children aged two to five and their adults.

At their café stall outside the tent, festival goers can mind their manners and participate in a continuous production of Etiquette. A 30-minute theatrical experience just for two, participants will be shown to their seats, given headphones, instructions and props. That’s all they’ll know upfront – this interesting production has been called haunting by the local press in Oxford and will make festival goers jump, think and laugh out loud.

The Playhouse’s youth theatre team will be roaming the site in all manner of outfits entertaining and surprising passers-by with their surprising, spontaneous and exciting promenade 16|22 production. All the world is a stage for these young performers. Oxford Playhouse will also be hosting a number of family events, workshops and activities run by their Learning Team throughout the weekend.

Comedy courtesy of Paddy Luscombe Presents

The funny stuff will be brought to Truck Festival this year again by their regular comedy producer Paddy Luscombe. Comedians lined up include one of the UK’s most prolific comedians, Richard Herring, who is busy touring the country with his critically acclaimed Edinburgh Fringe show, Christ on a Bike: The Second Coming, and co-hosting the 6 Music Saturday breakfast show with Andrew Collins. Also appearing will be super-red-hot youngster and winner of the Newbury Comedy Festival New Act of the Year 2010 competition Matt Richardson, Alex Clissold Jones (So You Think You're Funny? competition finalist), BBC New Comedy Award finalist Angela Barnes, Rachel Parris (Funny Woman competition finalist), Chris Turner of the “brilliantly inspired lines even the most experienced punslinger would be proud of” (according to Chortle.co.uk) and the “hilarious” (The Times) Rory O'Keefe.

Cabaret is all A-Go-Go at Truck 14

The Long Insiders’ Cabaret A-Go-Go will welcome festival goers to a slice of the past, a night stolen from the first half of the last century. They arrive for the first time at Truck like an off-the-rails Hollywood starlet. Hot rocking music, sizzling burlesque and a retrospective sense of style, The Long Insiders have been on a journey weaving up and down the 50's and early 60s before they firmly set up camp in Rockabillysville. They’ll be playing music to make Truckers stomp their feet through the trailer floor.

The Rabbit Foot Spasm Band shows are a succession of two or three minute up tempo numbers, lots of brass, rasping sax, raucous rhythm, tap dancing and a stage that's set for authentic, prohibition-era, serious drinking. Yes-Suh! Hotly tipped, The Severed Limb are a skiffle band from London town guaranteed to get the crowd “fussin’ and a fightin’” for the dance floor. Their latest single “Woo Eee. Ha! Ha!” is a perfect foil to a night of rockin’ burlesque. Described as “a dirty three way between Dick Dale, Poison Ivy and Link Wray”, Truckers will need to hold on to their beautifully quiffed do’s for One Fathom Down.

Plus exotic cabaret acts Miss Amelia (all the way from the U.S of A), Miss Betsy Rose (burlesque dancer and vintage darling) and Daisy Deluxe (boom boom burlesque) will be strutting their stuff. Truck goers are encouraged to dress to mess and set their retro rockets on full blast. Dudes can slick their hair and put a roll in their jeans and dames can bring the technicolour film star glamour.

Warming things up for the night time shenanigans will be Oxford’s very own Cabaret Clandestino – a mix of spoken word (often humorous) with a dash of fine music and improve featuring The Geees, The Oxford Imps, Little Fish (acoustic performance), Faceometer, George Chopping, Matt Chanerin, Matt Winkworth, James Bell, Ben Walker, Mark Niel and Robin Lawley.

All night disco party at Boxford

Building on the success of the late night party hot spot last year, the following are confirmed for Truck Festival’s electronic extravaganza in the Boxford area: Kostas Goustas, Jack Richens, Si Roche, Cubiq, Angie Walters, Dub Politics, Charris & B’ill, Get Your Geek On, Toby Kidd, Ed Steele, Ben Downing and Scott Parker. There will be a 90-hour music programme over three days including dance music in all its forms – techno, disco, drum & bass, dubstep, dub, reggae, ambient, funk, electro, breakbeat and edits (amongst others). The revamped Boxford area will include a main stage, cocktail lounge (including DJs), café/chill-out tent, skateboard ramps, lighting and visual platforms and a graffiti expo. Skateboarding and graffiti workshops will run throughout the weekend.

Back to the basics of Truck Festival – the bands

Of course what Truck Festival does first and foremost, and what they’ve been doing since they were just a wee nipper and saucy burlesque dancers and theatrical performances were a long way off, is put on the best music around. Recently added to the bill for Hill Farm this July are none more indie (in a good way) than Camden’s indie heroes Tribes, Oxford heroes Dive Dive, Truck headliners from years back The Rock Of Travolta plus Deer Park and Mitchell Museum.

Weekend tickets for Truck are still less than £100 taking the prize for the best value mini-holiday music lovers could wish for in 2011.