I've done flying visits to Latitude before but never quite as flying as this. A combination of knackered car and daughter having first dibs on tent meant cadging a lift with a friend and a day trip. Early start, arrived at noon, settled down in the comedy tent and apart from a brief promenade around the site during one act that I wanted to avoid – no names, no pack drill – that was my Latitude 2024.

 

It certainly started with a laugh, and I'm not talking compere Morgan Rees', erm, genital-hugging outfit (pictured, it's obvious which one is him). Not so much trouser snake, more trouser gerbil. He certainly got the audience smiling before Mark Simmons did his set.

 

Simmons (pictured, ginger hair) has built up a big following with his instagram account @jokeswithmark but for those that didn't know him he explained that he was a one-liner comic, not that you'd need to be told that as he wasted no time at all firing out gag after gag such as "I keep writing letters to myself. Dear me." 

 

It didn't matter if you'd never heard his name before, the crowd soon warmed to him. Simmons used to be stiffer onstage but he has loosened up a lot in recent years and is happy to play around with the audience. He asked people's hobbies, which makes a change from asking what their jobs are, and a combination of quick wit and emergency gags meant that he always had a comeback. Sometimes as cheesy as a kilo of brie but always funny.

 

Next up was Australia's Sam Campbell (pictured, pink shirt) who has really built up a following in the UK after winning the Edinburgh Comedy Award and appearing on Taskmaster. I doubt if there was a funnier twenty minutes during the whole weekend. Campbell often does absurdist multimedia sets but here he did a stripped down stand-up set of crazy, wild quips and stories. Like many comics he has ADHD, no shit Sherlock. I wondered if the audience would take to his high-energy off-the-wall personality but my fears were unfounded.

 

I particularly liked his story about his uncle who had coffee breath and then blew up an inflatable mattress, making it like sleeping on a Tiramisu. Except, of course, it turned out that it wasn't an uncle, but that's another story from the Sam Campbell flights of fancy rolodex. There were jokes about subjects as wideranging as homeschooling and opening the fridge too quickly: "Awaken the suction!".

 

This festival was a final chance for Mark Simmons to roadtest his material before his run at the Edinburgh Fringe and it was the same for Flo & Joan (pictured, twosome). The musical sisters might just be the best musical act on the circuit at the moment (though I keep hearing good things about Jazz Emu) and the Latitude crowd clearly enjoyed their infectious tunes, wordplay and even tongue-twisters.

 

In fact at one point the singing siblings asked the audience to stop clapping along as the song in question lasted for five minutes and they wouldn't be able to keep it up. They've good a great double act chemistry with Nicola Dempsey (keyboards) channeling Sparks' Ron Mael's deadpan precision into her performance, while Rosie is the more easy-going Russell Mael. 

 

The closest comparison is probably Flight of the Conchords, where the lyrics and the music are often an odd but very winning mismatch. Though I don't think the much-loved Kiwi combo ever did a song about a lady living in the woods that sounded like a genuine old English folk song, complete with recorder solos.

 

While I was watching Flo & Joan I had a message that my lift back to London was leaving soon so I just had time to hear Rosie Jones (pictured, bending over) explain that you wouldn't be seeing her on I'm A Celebrity because...she has dignity before I did a quick circuit (editor's note - Jones was not the act mentioned above that I wanted to avoid). There really is so much going on at the same time you can't take it all in even if you spend the full long weekend here. Apparently there was music too, from Duran Duran to Rick Astley, but it would have been quite possible to spend three enjoyable, sun-soaked days on the Suffolk site and not hear a note.

 

You never know what you might encounter. I popped my head into one tent and saw a talk about the history of Bombay Sapphire gin, then made my way to another tent where the Comedy Store Players (pictured, group) were talking about giraffes' forelegs. Not four legs. Forelegs. Lee Simpson asked the questions, Ruth Bratt and Richard Vranch took alternate words to answer. It's an old impro exercise but one that always works, the performers clearly enjoying it almost as much as the audience.

 

And then my chauffeur was calling. I was treated to a bumpy trip in a golf buggy back to the car park where I bid Latitude a fond farewell. I'd hardly scratched the surface of the surface of this year's Festival. Hopefully by next year my car will have been repaired and I'll have repossessed my tent.