Deciding that since it was, after all, a Youth Theatre festival, we went against last year's example and actually went to see some performances. This turned out to be a good decision, as the quality was generally very high, with a wide variety of material used, and some exceptional talent on show (in both senses of the word =0) ). We filled our days with the various performances, in between bouts of friend-making, football, frisbee, and a lethal combination of the three which my bruises and cut lip testified had been a bad idea. There were also many different workshops open to those who were inclined to join in, but since that involved both rising early and signing up, and also doing some work, we found other things to do =0).

The event was excellently organised, with announcements of upcoming performances and workshops relayed across the whole site via tannoy (one of the funniest moments of the weekend came when a call to 'the clock tower' had a consonant accidentally cut off, to much audible amusement), meaning that you always knew what was going on in and around the festival at any time. In addition to this, there were festival staff everywhere in their distinctive shirts who were more than willing to help while they went about ensuring everything ran smoothly. And some were quite cute, which was a bonus...

When the sun set, the campsites became a chilly mass of torchlights as the groups mingled and made their way to the nightly dance in the social centre of the festival, the Hub, for a few sweaty hours of manic jigging and the possibility of some snogging action. Those of us fortunate enough to bear the coveted green wristband granted only to eighteen year olds and above also stopped by the bar for a drink. Or six.

After the DJ at the dance played his final record (normally a slow number which reduced the couples to smoochies and the singles to suicide), the masses of hyped theatre-types spilled out into the darkness in order to vanish into friends' tents or take part in the outdoor talent showcase in which some impressed, some entertained, and some should have been sued under the Trades Descriptions Act for entering. Many late-night wanderers found it fun to just walk around aimlessly shouting into the dark, adding the odd song for variety. Some people even went to sleep, I'm told.

As I said, the quality of performance at the festival was very high, which lead to some worries within our own group as to our reception. Our piece was both (hopefully) comic, and devised from improvisations, making it very different from much of what was on offer from other groups. In the end, this worked to our advantage, as the applause and laughs came easily enough, and the odd risqué line went without offence or shock. All of a sudden we were the darlings of our campsite, and I lost count of the number of congratulations we received from complete strangers long after our performance was done with.

So, despite feeling slightly grubby and very tired from a weekend of little soap and less sleep, it was quite sad to leave the festival behind as we rode out of the park grounds on top of our minibus, making as much a spectacle of ourselves as we could. It was a gathering of people from different backgrounds who all shared an interest and just wanted to let go for a weekend, forgetting the world outside the park and enjoying the madness, all in the name of fun.

        And it worked.