Review: Purbeck Valley Folk Festival 2015

There’s a few things Dorset is renowned for – great scenery and great festivals being up there and this little beaut straddles the two. Set on a gorgeous little site in the Pubecks, you get an excellent view of Corfe Castle and can pick whether you arrive via the mainland or the chain ferry over to Sandbanks.

This is the festival’s third site since its launch back in 2009 but we’re going to hazard a guess at third time lucky here. Granted it’s a bit hilly, it’s a working farm, so not all that good for those garden carts you drag toddlers around in – but it means each area feels like a little gem in its own right.

As many a festival promoter who holds their event in August – the height of the British summer – will know, the weather can be a little temperamental. Rarely does an August Bank Holiday go by without a sprinkling of rain and this weekend was no different. But the team was so well prepared that as soon as somewhere started to get muddy, they’d whack a load of straw down – voila! New pathway.

Besides, two of the stages are under cover – in barns. With plenty of hay bales to rest your weary ass on. The main bar is in a barn too, with space for sofas and Morris dancing lessons, should you be that way inclined.  Bunny Chow stand, serving chilli in hollowed out bread which is hte perfect festival meal and while common in South Africa, is rarely seen here. The best cheese toastie ever. And a lush Thai Curry. The food stalls are open air, but are well worth getting wet for – there’s theThere’s one outdoors stage, the Fire Stage – which proves the most picturesque of stages here.

It’s on this stage on the Sunday that we catch Connecticut’s Caravan of Thieves, fronted by a mini folkier Bruce Springsteen, with a most excellent guitar and the skills to match. He’s flanked by a wonderful female singer and a couple more musicians – but they’re joined on stage by about 20 children for one of their last songs. It’s great fun and the band almost enjoys it as much as we do.

Penultimate band of the evening here are a motley bunch of folk musicians who all look like they should be in another band – the singer channelling Tim Vine circa his band performance on Outnumbered, one looking like he was in the Libertines, another The Damned and another separated at birth from Ed Sheeran. Too busy nailing their famous dopplegangers and trying to ignore the lyrics (though the music was good) to notice that!

Headliner Alex Roberts nailed it straight away with his Jamie N Commons vibe – a deep, bluesy voice with the depth of Louis Armstrong and the sexiness of Tom Waits. He’s joined on stage by the a comedic strings expert playing an instrument almost as tall as him and one which he clearly has deep love for. Roberts tells magnetic stories of love and life and does so with a soulful, compelling howl. It culminates in the duo bursting into an impassioned rendition of ‘What shall we do with the drunken sailor’, inspired.