Including reviews of Akira, Missy Fortune and Ukulele Trash Mob
By day, the Poetry&Words tent hosts spoken word, performance poetry, theatre, open mics, and poetry slams. By night, the mood in the tent changes entirely: rebranded as Mavericks, it becomes a cabaret venue full of the weird and wonderful side of the festival’s Theatre & Circus offerings.
Acts that during the day can be found in Cabaret, the Circus Big Top, the Astrolabe Theatre and beyond can be spotted in Mavericks performing their more experimental or risqué material.
Somehow, in the past two festivals reviewing the Theatre & Circus fields, I hadn’t managed to make it to Mavericks.
Its schedule is released later than the rest of Theatre & Circus, and I had planned my own rough schedule for the weekend before it was released and though you never stick to a schedule at Glastonbury, I hadn’t made enough time to squeeze it in. You have to know what you’re looking for with Mavericks – or better yet, go in with no expectations of what you may see.
This year, I knew I wouldn’t make the same mistake. And to avoid the chance of being drawn in elsewhere, I decided to block out Sunday night in my timetable just for Mavericks. It seemed a fitting way to draw this year’s festival to a close before the fallow year, checking out the best of Theatre & Circus in an intimate setting. And being the only current Theatre & Circus stage that I hadn’t yet visited (of 20-odd stages and areas), what a way to complete the set.
I wander in as Akira takes the stage, wearing a portable DJ-set around his neck and with an easel ready, he creates a ‘portrait of a gentleman’ by slicing through the top sheet of paper with a Stanley knife to create negative space against the black backing underneath while performing on his decks throughout. ‘You will recognise him,” he says partway through, before letting a member of the crowd play on his DJ-deck briefly. I think I recognise the man’s silhouetted face as Guy Fawkes, but, if I’m honest, I’m not entirely sure.
Akira is followed by Missy Fortune – the alter ego of the family-friendly Missy Impossible, who I had seen performing earlier in the week. While Missy Impossible is an all-action powder puff girl (her description), Missy Fortune arrives all in black, wearing stockings, suspenders and a corset. The premise of her show is the same: there’s sword swallowing, and she picks a volunteer from the audience to stand on her stomach while she lies on a bed of 6-inch rusty nails. She has her volunteers check that the nails are real – ‘‘I have been accused of faking it before’ she adds. But the comedy is ramped up through suggestion in Missy Fortune’s raunchier take on the same act, elevating the show.
As Missy Fortune departs, the leaders of Ukulele Trash Mob take the stage, led by Gary ‘Gacko’ Bridgens and armed with a stack of ukuleles. It’s at this point that I witness 25 people make their Glastonbury debuts as volunteers from the audience are brought on stage, quickly taught a few basic chords and perform an impromptu version of Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds. Mini versions of Glastonbury’s famous flags are dispatched into the crowd to give us the full Glastonbury experience before confetti rains down on the stage.
‘There are lots of secret things at this festival,’ Gacko announces as they take their bows. ‘You were either there or you weren’t – and you were there!’ In the early hours of Monday morning, that note seems like the perfect moment to draw my Glastonbury Festival 2025 to a close. I head out of the Mavericks tent and into the cool night air. Elvana are rocking on the Sensation Seekers Stage as the South East corner crackles with activity in the distance, and the buzzing crowds mill around heading from one late-night venue to the next.
I grab one last beer and drink it slowly as I wander back to my tent, taking in the sights and collecting my bag from one of the festival’s lock-up for the last time on the way. And all the way back, I think about the amazing moments that 2025 has produced – and wonder at what 2027 will bring.
