Dark speculation in the shower queue: could this be the end of Just So?

This delightful family arts festival, which has attracted a devoted audience of repeat attendees, is taking a year off in 2025. It will leave scores of families with no legitimate excuse to spend a weekend in a field dressed as frogs, lions or foxes next August – the Carnival of the Animals, which sees festival-goers pick a ‘tribe’ and spend the duration in costume is a central feature of Just So – but, more pressingly, next year’s hiatus raised a question mark for some at this year’s gathering about the future of this much-loved event.

“See you in 2026!” was the message from organisers Wild Rumpus at Sunday night’s festival finale, shortly before raucous headliners Bonfire Radicals took to the stage with their joyful mix of fast-paced prog-folk. The promise is that Just So will be back, full of new ideas, in two years’ time. But the 2024 programme undoubtedly felt a little thinner in places than earlier iterations of the festival, perhaps reflecting the increased costs of a post-pandemic, high-inflation world.

There was less in the way of narrative performance than in years gone by. A Selkie Story, a collaboration between Wild Rumpus and theatre company ThickSkin which was the main offering on this front, made great use of the beautiful setting around Rode Hall’s lake as a stage for promenade performance, but rather threw this away with an unduly brief script. Saturday evening in general lacked a little momentum. After Chris Bullzini’s gasp-inducing high wire performance, at times over the weekend we (on our fourth visit) felt like we were reaching for something to do rather than, as in the past, agonising between options.

Herein lies Just So’s curse as well as its blessing. For in securing the loyalty of repeat custom, it has set a high bar and entrenched expectations for itself. First-timers would not have been judging Just So 2024 by the standards of its pre-Covid self. They would likely have been marvelling at the beautiful woodland Spellbound Campfire, listening to stories and singing Scout songs with their children. Or dancing gleefully to the hugely charismatic Ríoghnach Connolly and Honeyfeet at the main Footlights stage on Friday evening, learning to dance Bhangra or swing or ceilidh, admiring the giant puppets, or marvelling at Inspirate as they brought to life the South Asian tale of Rama and Sita.

Just So in 2024 was more imaginative, warm-hearted and creative than most ways you could find to spend a family weekend, even as it looks to take time out and evolve. While some of the old stalwarts of previous years were absent, others were there with bells on. These included singer-songwriter David Gibb who, as ever, delighted his multi-generational audience with kid-friendly bangers about digging for treasure, riding tandems and disco-dancing teddies.

It’s a difficult balance to stay fresh while retaining the core of what existing fans love. There is so much creativity and commitment in the team behind Just So, and so much goodwill behind them, that they surely find that equilibrium.

By Fran Yeoman

All photographs by Anna Hornby

 

 

 

Just So Festival