Well here I am sat on the train waiting to head back home after what has been an amazing day out at the first ever Apple Cart festival in Victoria Park.

I thought I’d write a little bit about what I’ve seen, from the good stuff to the not so good and the extremely weird! It’s been a bit of a long day so bare with me if I ramble a little, I’ve had a few beers too but hopefully this will all make sense…

The highlights

Happy days being sung in German (can’t remember exactly who did this, please help!)
Comedian Mark Steel getting heckled by a 4 year old
Huddling under a very pretty lady’s umbrella as the rain started coming down
Churros!
Jeremiah weed bourbon ale
Gilles Peterson dancing away merrily behind his decks
And of course the amazing Tim Minchin

The lowlights

My back getting soaked through from the rain coming down off a tent
Not getting the number of the girl I joined under her umbrella
Badly drawn boy (unfortunately – I will explain)
The shortness of Tim’s set (45 mins is not enough haha)

The weird

A man dressed in a sparkling leotard singing very strange songs in the cabaret tent
The urinals
The spanking station!

I first heard about the Apple Cart Festival after Tim Minchin tweeted that he would be headlining; so almost instantly I jumped online and got myself one and so did a couple of friends Andy and Zanny, who I don’t get to see enough so it was great to spend some time with them today.

We got there relatively early and checked out what was on offer with the handy map and schedule while relaxing with a Pimms outside the Pimms bus – the festival guide also had a great Don’t Miss! list which highlighted things to be on the look out for, great little addition at a small festival with a lot of new acts. There were 5 stages in total, the main stage, a cabaret tent, folk tent, comedy stage and the magic tent, as well as a lot of food stands around the village green, a penguin books tent/stall and the art car boot fair (home of the spanking station).

All about the comedy

To be honest the music line up wasn’t amazing (personal opinion obviously, it seemed to generate a good crowd for most of the day), the top acts on the main stage were The Magic Numbers (early afternoon oddly), Badly Drawn Boy and Tim Minchin. So we spent most of our time in the Comedy tent which always seemed pretty packed. There were some great acts, some which I’ve seen around on TV and a couple of new and very funny acts. The stand-out stand-ups were Jon Richardson, Doc Brown and Mark Steel but other acts like Paul Chowdry and Kevin Eldon are worth a mention.

At one point at the Comedy tent we were stood on the edge of the tent when the most almighty rain shower hit during Jon Richardson’s set – cue me befriending the hot girl with the umbrella – at which point Jon asked if people could come inside a bit more but a few very nice people sitting down jumped up and made everyone else do so too and suddenly the tent was rammed (I still got soaked as the water ran off the awning down my back on my way in). Another highlight in the comedy tent was during Mark Steel’s set, whilst pouring down with rain a lady came and collected her 2 children to take them out because of the rather fruitful language Mark was using (there were parental guidance warnings so nothing to complain about) and after Mark had commented on probably swearing too much a 4 year old jumped up in the crowd shouting “You’re a very naughty man!”. As funny as the exchange was between Mark and the 4 year old it went on a little long (as most kids do) but Mark’s handled it brilliantly and despite trying to curtail his language a little he failed pretty badly for the rest of the set.

“The Tim Minchin of rap”!

Must also mention Doc Brown who in the festival guide was touted as “The Tim Minchin of rap” and he certainly didn’t disappoint, a very funny comedian and the rap interludes complimented his stand-up superbly and finishing by incorporating the crowd as his “hype-men” was a great end to the set.

Badly Mannered Boy

The only lowlight I’ll mention (apart from getting soaked), was the impression Badly Drawn Boy (Damon Gough) gave me after I got to the main stage towards the end of his set. Now maybe I missed something and really he was quite good and funny and whatnot but it seemed as if he really didn’t give a shit about being there. He seemed rather arrogant and didn’t really care too much about what people thought about it, half starting songs and then saying “actually I can’t remember how that one starts…I’ll do something else” and carrying on well over time and eventually having to be told to leave the stage (he still did 2 more songs). Now I’m happy to hold my hands up and say that I missed the point and had I been there for the whole set I’d have a completely different opinion but his attitude left me feeling a little disappointed as I really do like his music.

Finally I’ll give a little mention to a small act called Tim Minchin (and his band Brad and Pete). Nothing new from Tim this time, he played some of the classics: Rock N Roll Nerd, Prejudice, You Grew On Me; and a couple of the newer ones from the last year or so: The Good Book, Cont and the opening to CHEESE as well as finishing as always with Darkside. He opted to keep the chat short and to the point  and play more songs which giving the short time slot was welcomed by the audience although I was a bit disappointed to hear him mention a bit on grammar he was going to do. Him and the band did however throw in a little bit at the end of The Good Book, playing a coda for the audience to dance to which was good fun, so overall another great performance from Tim as usual!

So that’s it from me, I managed to get back to Marylebone in time for the last fast train home so not a bad one after all, there’s a few more of my pics from the day in the slideshow below, hope you enjoy them and thanks for reading.