Not all the world is a stage

One of the certainties of this summer has been mud, writes our video blogger James Shaw.
Whether it has been a quick trip to the shops for a pint of milk or a trek across south Shropshire to film floods, I seem to have been constantly muddy for the last four months.

That was very much the case at Weston Park at the weekend when I filmed the V-Festival . . . well, attempted to.

Although I can appreciate that certain TV companies have exclusivity deals when it comes to music festivals, I was stiff miffed - to say the least - that I couldn’t film ANY of the stages ANY of the time.

According to the PR firm in charge of the festival, this was to protect a deal with Channel Four, although I fail see how I could have spoiled this with a mere 10 seconds of footage.

I wasn’t even allowed to film the stages when they were not in use.

So, it was down to the good old general public to give me some material. And what a cracking job they did too - almost without exception, everybody I asked was willing to speak on camera.

Unfortunately, festivals-goers are rarely ever the best speakers - especially after a few early beers on the first day of a music festival… but they certainly looked the part, with an endless stream of Superman, Wonderwoman and even Elvis characters.

Suffice to say, the crowd gave me some of the best entertainment of the day - even if the stages were out of bounds.