Reading Festival: where the summer comes to stampede itself to death. If there are Polynesian islanders at a loss as to why they suffer an annual earthquake season for three days each August bank holiday, it’s because there are 90,000 teenagers – many body-painted with their sexual preferences and requests, in case of Tinder overload – doing lengths of a field in Berkshire.
They’ve been in training for this world’s biggest game of British Bulldog for years, but that’s not to say there’s nothing here for the overprotective dads. Watching the nation’s excitable youth charging between the east and west main stages, while being barked at by authority figures in shades, gives those of a certain vintage fond flashbacks to Mike Reid’s Seventies kids show, Runaround.
