Latitude number one a success

To be honest, I wish Mean Fiddler's Melvin Benn would be a bit clearer on whether or not he was pleased with the first outing of his Latitude event, the music come comedy come literature come arts festival that launched last weekend. All he'd say was that he was: "Absolutely ecstatic about the inaugural Latitude festival. Far too many highlights to list them all but the three headliners [Snow Patrol, Antony and the Jonsons and Mogwai] blew me away, as did Patti Smith, who spent the whole weekend in Southwold discovering her ancestral roots. Rob Newman captivated everyone in the comedy tent and then was captivated himself with Guilty Pleasures. The Royal Court Theatre making their first-ever festival performances enchanting the audiences, and the Literature and Poetry tents, which everyone doubted would work, stormed the weekend as I knew they would. Being read to at a festival; how absolutely delightful. The art of storytelling coming through on so many stages but especially those two. The site, the lake, the woods, the deck chairs, the punting in the gondolas all added to an extraordinary weekend for me. I haven't come down from it yet." As I say, a bit non-committal - but we hear on the grapevine he is happy and already planning Latitude 2007.