More Music, Comedy, Arts and Science added to our 20th Edition

Dance on the Waterfront

We’re marking our 20th anniversary in bold style, with Sir Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures taking over the Waterfront Stage, in partnership with DanceEast, for an unmissable programme of world-class dance by the lake. Headlining the programme is the long-awaited return of the iconic Swan Lake, back at Latitude for the first time in almost a decade and a crowning moment for our milestone year. This audacious, rule-breaking reinvention of Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece caused a sensation when it premiered almost 30 years ago, and has since won over 30 international awards including three Tony Awards and an Olivier.

Alongside it, New Adventures’ Doorstep Duets brings an altogether different magic to the festival, with joyful performances that invite festival-goers to experience exceptional dance in an extraordinary setting. Over at The Listening Post, a rare and intimate conversation with Sir Matthew Bourne, the most successful dance theatre director in British history, offers festival-goers a quite different perspective on an artist whose relationship with Latitude stretches back across the festival’s two decades.

In partnership with DanceEast, the Waterfront also presents an extraordinary range of companies from across the contemporary dance world. One of the most exciting choreographers working in Britain today, Vicki Igbokwe-Ozoagu brings Uchenna Dance’s Our Mighty Groove to the Waterfront, a joyful, fearless celebration of Black British culture, community and movement. Canadian ice dance company Le Patin Libre present Wheels & Cello, a thrilling fusion of skates, wheels and live music. Alleyne Dance perform Far From Home, a deeply personal work exploring displacement and belonging, while Ekleido bring two works: Femina (Excerpt) and Rorschach. PCK Dance present Vessel, completing a programme of remarkable range and ambition.

Rounding out the Waterfront, The Place returns with  BUGS! which brings an irresistible, family-friendly celebration of the insect world to the stage, and Almost Synchro delivers a playful, charming and utterly unique performance that has delighted festival audiences across the country.

Across our Music Stages

Our music line up reflects two decades of commitment to discovery, diversity and the unexpected. Joining our Obelisk Arena bill is Cian Ducrot, the Cork-born, classically trained singer-songwriter. Also appearing are the godfathers of jungle and drum & bass, Fabio & Grooverider and The Outlook Orchestra, bringing their landmark orchestral live show to Henham Park.

The Second Stage welcomes more defining voices in British music. Beth Orton, the Norfolk-born pioneer of folktronica, returns to Latitude, Temples arrive with a new album on the way, confirming them as one of the most inventive and enduring forces in British rock, and Overpass bring their anthemic, arena-sized guitar rock.

The Sunrise Arena announces an extraordinary range of talent: Brooklyn trio Say She She deliver their intoxicating “discodelic soul”, Glasgow five-piece VLURE return with their rave-laced punk.

Ezra Collective founding member Joe Armon-Jones brings his uncompromising blend of jazz, dub and soul. London six-piece Man/Woman/Chainsaw were described by Steve Lamacq as a band he “f***ing loves“. Militarie Gun blend hardcore aggression with Beatles-esque production.

Ellie O’Neill is a singer-songwriter who has toured with Adrianne Lenker and John Francis Flynn. Linka Moja merges folk melodies, rock instrumentation and soulful rhythms. Elle Coves creates hooky indie pop, while Brighton five-piece Goodbye are one of the most exciting new bands in British music.

The Alcove showcases the most adventurous new talent in the festival across all three days. On Friday, we’re joined by Mustbejohn, ain’t, Brooki, Tommy Barlow and Natalie Wildgoose. On Saturday, we’re thrilled to welcome Solya, The North, Dermot Henry, 1000 Rabbits, PEM and Mên An Tol. Sunday’s eclectic line up consists of The Guest List, LEMONSUCKR, Gracie Friel, Shay O’Dowd, Pixie McCann, Little Grandad and Blair Davie.

Poetry & Literature and The Listening Post and The Bookshop

The legendary Dr John Cooper Clarke brings his razor-sharp wit and machine-gun delivery back to Henham Park, 20 years on from his first Latitude performance in 2006. With poetry opening the festival on Thursday night, with a line up that feels like a genuine statement of intent: twenty years on from that first edition, Latitude’s opening night belongs to the poets.

Voted the most important poet of the last twenty years in a poll of Latitude’s own audience, Inua Ellams returns for a homecoming of his own. One of the earliest poets to perform at Latitude, Ellams has grown from a young artist finding his voice on this very stage into one of the most celebrated poets, playwrights and storytellers of his generation.

Luke Wright returns to the stage with a deeply personal new book, Later Life Letter, a memoir in poetry exploring his own adoption, the biological brothers he knows only through social media, and the complex, tender nuances of family and belonging.

Poet, author and activist Salena Godden brings her extraordinary live presence to The Listening Post, her work pulsing with fury, tenderness and hope. Joining them are Hollie McNish, whose frank, funny and deeply humane writing has introduced poetry to audiences who never expected to love it; Joelle Taylor, whose visceral and visionary work has made her one of the defining voices of contemporary British poetry; and Tim Clare, whose warmth, wit and fearless emotional intelligence has won him a devoted following through both poetry and his celebrated podcast.

John Osborne brings his characteristic warmth and storytelling brilliance to The Listening Post, his latest collection To Make People Happy shortlisted for the East Anglian Book Awards. Birmingham’s Bradley Taylor arrives with his debut collection You Missed The Best Part, described by Craig Charles on BBC Radio 6 Music as “a brand new voice and a fresh perspective on the art of poetry.” Georgie Jones, a Roundhouse finalist with 5.8 million social media views, joins Kate Ireland, whose debut collection Adaptive Strategies for a Sensitive System is a field guide for surviving a world that keeps turning up the brightness, by turns raw and wryly funny. Hannah Jane Walker is a poet, playwright and BBC Radio 4 broadcaster whose work encompasses performance poetry, theatre, and her belief that poetry is, above all, a form of genuine conversation.

Topping the literary bill, author and screenwriter Courttia Newland arrives with his electrifying new book The Art of Opposition: On Hope, Resilience and Creative Expression Beyond the Mainstream – a bold and provocative examination of what it means to make art in defiance of the mainstream, from one of the most important voices in British literature. Joining him, poet and essayist Rebecca Tamás, whose debut collection WITCH was a Guardian, Times and Paris Review book of the year. Completing the trio, Branford Boase-nominated Ella McLeod is a South London writer, poet and spoken word performer whose YA novels weave poetry with prose to explore identity, womanhood, Blackness and queerness.

The programme extends well beyond poetry. Comedians Do Poems and the gloriously unpredictable Pappy’s Flatshare Slamdown complete a brilliantly irreverent comedy strand, while Sara & Cariad’s Weirdos Book Club brings Sara Pascoe and Cariad Lloyd‘s warmly funny celebration of undersung books to a live Latitude audience.

This year we are working with The British Society of Magazine Editors on the BSME & Caitlin Moran Young Writers’ Prize,  a competition designed to find the UK’s next great young writer, culminating in a stage appearance at Latitude 2027 alongside Caitlin Moran. Open to 18-25 year olds across the UK, it is designed for those who have something to say but lack the connections or traditional pathways into journalism. The deadline for entries is 8th May 2026 and the winner will attend Latitude 2027. As Moran puts it: “I won my career in a writing competition at 15. I want to do the same for someone else.” Full details here.

Latitude is also proud to announce the launch of its debut fiction series with Sarah Gwonyoma, bringing together some of the most exciting new voices in contemporary fiction for a programme of readings and conversations.

The Bookshop returns with one of its most compelling programmes yet, anchored once again on Friday by Martha Kearney and her acclaimed nature writing strand. A long-time Suffolk resident with a profound love for the East Anglian landscape, Kearney curates a special day of nature writing events on the Friday of Latitude. And the line up is exceptional – joining Martha is natural history writer for the Guardian and author of eight acclaimed books, Patrick Barkham, The National Trust’s senior adviser on woodland, Luke Barley, tree science consultant and writer Harriet Rix, writer and Oxford Fellow Charles Foster, whose New York Times bestseller Being a Beast won the Ig Nobel Prize for Biology, and David Appleton, head of the Suffolk UK Tree Warden Network.

The Cosmic Shambles Forest of Science and Culture

We’re excited to also be welcoming more esteem names on The Apollo Stage across science, comedy and music!

Brand new minds coming to Henham Park include puppeteer Lori Hopkins, Cosmic Shambles producer Melinda Burton, criminal psychologist Julia Shaw, neuropsychologist Catherine Loveday, palaeontologist Susie Maidment, biologist Simon Watt, vet Elizabeth Johnson, bioinformatician Rachel Honeyghan-Williams, scientific storyteller Nate Rae, principle research fellow at UCL Susannah Fisher, Professor of Material Modelling at Oxford University Saiful Islam, Braintastic! presenter and neuroscience graduate Eugenia Sarpong and geneticist Turi King, plus musicians Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason and Jakko Jaksyzk, and comedy performances from Toussaint Douglass, Sara Pascoe and Cariad Lloyd!

Plus, The Geological Society, the oldest national geological society in the world and the largest in Europe,  joins your Museum Street line up, and Ocean Songs graces the Waterfront Stage line up, a music project on a genre-bending journey across our blue planet blending pop, classical, and ambient influences,