Here is a documentary that should provide a balm of sorts to anyone pining for Glastonbury in a fallow year for the festival – though one whose charms might be somewhat lost on non-attendees. It tells the story of new-age traveller Roy Gurvitz, who in the early 2000s founded the bacchanalian late-night area Lost Vagueness, a move that invigorated the festival just as it was lurching into irrelevance.
Featuring everything from ballroom dancing to drag shows and gruesome displays of body horror performance art (and a lot of drugs, a detail strangely unremarked-on in the film), the area soon became the stuff of legend among festivalgoers – not to mention tabloid editors, who thrilled to the (false) rumours that Kate Moss and Pete Doherty had got hitched in the area’s Chapel of Love. Soon Lost Vagueness was an all-purpose alternative party behemoth in its own right, putting on its own events and club nights – though rising costs, as well as Gurvitz’s erratic towards his staff were taking their toll.
Director Sofia Olins was present for Lost Vagueness’s rise and demise, and her film offers some great behind-the-scenes footage, not least a bizarre conflict between Gurvitz and Glastonbury over a repurposed aeroplane cockpit that ultimately spelled the end of Lost Vagueness at the festival. Yet her proximity to her subjects means that there’s an over-focus on the infighting in the second half of the film – a subject likely to be less fascinating to outsiders than it was to those who were there at the time. Still there’s entertainment enough here to keep viewers entertained – not least the sight of Norman Cook dressed as a bee and a performer named Mouse, whose dog-food-themed party trick is perhaps best left undiscussed here.
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