Latitude Festival has to be one of our favourite multi-arts festivals going! This year not only has a killer music line-up, but also a massively impressive arts programme to satisfy the most demanding culture-vulture. You can expect a truly vibrant mix from the best of the best from our cultural landscape - think cabaret, literature salons, theatrical productions, ballet, visual arts and much, much more. Run Riot caught up with Tania Harrison, the prolific lady behind the arts programme to get an insiders view of this years epic experience. She talks us through the inspiration, The School of Life, the ballet, and even a dedicated arena that we think is very Zeitgeist! Tania also offers her personal recommendations for the Run Riot readers. Latitude Festival 2012, Thursday 12th July - Sunday 15th July. All photos by Marc Sethi.

Run Riot: You say this years Latitude Festival is 'inspired by all things British from the beginnings of our Pagan heritage to the present day'. What's triggered this? Is there something in the air tonight?
Tania Harrison: I love the artist Jeremy Deller and have been inspired by his work exploring folk art, his parade at MIF and also his re-staging of the Battle of Orgreave plus seeing Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem has made me want to look at those ideas and concepts at Latitude this year. Latitude is set in Suffolk, and the area was the home of the Yceni tribe and where Boudicca began her uprising against the Romans. I kinda got over involved in reading about all these subjects and seeing so many artists are creating work which touches on those subjects, it seemed right to bring those thoughts into a modern day festival.

RR: The Arts line-up this year is phenomenal with a terrific variety from the fringe to the established. Is this the most full it's been?  
Tania Harrison: I have programmed nearly 700 acts/shows into Latitude this year and I still have the Film & Music Arena and the Literary and Pandora’s stages to finish booking, which is probably why I look about 80 right now. I like to present new artists in to the mix as well as trying to bring established names like National Theatre and the RSC. Both companies are actually bringing new ideas this year and the National are working with youth companies round the country to stage the best performance of Steven Sater’s new production Alice By Heart, a new take on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I’ve seen a few of the contenders already and they’re just so good, it’s going to be a nightmare to choose who finally performs at Latitude.

RR: As there's so much to chose from - could you pick out a few highlights for a Run Riot reader attending for their first time?
Tania Harrison: Oooh, this could get me into trouble as I should say pick them all!  I’m very excited about the Forest Fringe nights in the Literary Salon, Bryony Kimmings is a brilliantly wild artist and can make anyone laugh, I’ve tried for years to persuade the amazing graphic artist Alan Moore to come and he will be in the Film & Music Arena with Iain Sinclair creating a great English cultural adventure plus the Lyric, Greenwich Festival and Watford Palace Theatre and Latitude have all worked together to bring five innovative companies to present something very different and special: there’s an aroma lounge, a macabre tea party, a bouncy castle and a government committee all involved in the mayhem.  The Comedy and Cabaret Arenas are packed with all the best comics and Edinburgh preview shows so there’s anything from dry wit (Jack Dee), science (Brian Cox), low level menace (Doctor Brown), white y-fronts (Cardinal Burns) to incontinence (Kazuko Hohki). Oh and I’d recommend catching Siri Hustvedt and Ned Beauman who are in the Literary Arena both talking about their new books. Apparently lots of people who come to Latitude just wander into a tent through curiosity and like to be surprised by what they discover.

RR: It's great to see The School of Life presenting some talks - what can we expect to learn?
Tania Harrison: We thought it would be good to ask the life’s big questions covering money, sex and the universe...so John-Paul Flintoff will be taking a class on How To Change The World and there will also be a breakfast discussion on How To Worry Less About Money. The talks are always packed at Latitude and I like the idea that you can walk away from the festival with more than just a hangover.

RR: Ballet at Latitude? What will Sadler's Wells be presenting on The Waterfront Stage?
Tania Harrison: Sadler’s Wells always present a brilliant programme and this year Candoco, Jonzi D. And we have another two brilliant companies for the programme which we will announce very soon!

RR: Of all the 'happenings' at Latitude, would you agree that the Occupy Zone chimes the most with Zeitgeist? Could you tell us more about it?
Tania Harrison: I feel that this is a time of change and of unrest. People seem to be looking at their identity, who their community is and their histories and it’s fascinating to explore the Diggers (forefathers of Occupy perhaps?), Levellers, Pagan rituals and psycho-geography. Within the Forest this year, we will be creating an Occupy Zone which will focus on community, beginning with our Pagan heritage and our journey from there to our current belief system and the influence of protest groups such as Occupy. We will celebrate identity, from paganism, tribal communities and folk customs through to present day political and resistance movements. I will be staging productions in the Theatre Arena, Outdoor Theatre and Forest to work with this. Theatre Delicatessen are staging a radical reworking of Henry V so they’ll be an encampment and hospital right in the middle of our occupy Zone not to mention some psychedelic hippies from 1968 alongside Occupy, Trade Unions and Marie Antoinette’s ruined boudoir (well, it is Bastille Day on the Saturday after all).

RR: What is the all-time must-have accessory for attending Latitude?
Tania Harrison: Hmmm, if I said a spirit of adventure that would be a bit pretentious non, so let’s go with cowboy boots for Saturday night’s wild Hoe Down.

Latitude Festival 2012
Thursday 12th July - Sunday 15th July
Henham Park, Southwold, Sunrise Coast, Suffolk
latitudefestival.co.uk