Guernsey Press

Festival-first Notting Hill Carnival parade ‘sums up Glastonbury’

Vibrant stilt walkers, a truck in the shape of a beetle and a lorry carrying a dozen steel pan players joined the parade at Glastonbury Festival.

Published

Glastonbury festival-goers have said a festival-first Notting Hill Carnival parade perfectly “sums up” the event at Worthy Farm.

Caribbean dancers in bikinis and feather headdresses marched through the site at Worthy Farm on Thursday after a new partnership between the annual street party in Notting Hill, London, and the Somerset festival was announced this year.

Starting at Block9, the late-night party zone where Notting Hill Carnival is based for this year’s showpiece, a vibrant procession meandered through the roads that link Glastonbury’s stages.

Glastonbury Festival 2022
Glastonbury has thrown its first Notting Hill Carnival (PA)

“People are dancing, everyone’s having a great time, everyone’s following along, it’s great,” finance consultant and festival-goer Hollie Rowe-Roberts told the PA news agency.

The 31-year-old from Colliers Wood in London came across the parade with her friends Alex Evans, a 37-year-old plumber and Nicholas Tsioupra, a 28-year-old airline pilot from Nottingham.

Nicholas Tsioupra, Alex Evans and Hollie Rowe-Roberts are enjoying their time at Glastonbury Festival (PA)

Chiara Beck, from Newcastle, said stumbling across the parade “sums up Glastonbury”.

“Just a lot of joy, a lot of fun and random things that you don’t expect – that’s Glastonbury,” she told PA.

Glastonbury Festival 2022
Notting Hill Carnival performers paraded on stilts (Yui Mok/PA)

Dancing around a stage in a short white dress, the 48-year-old from Newtonabbey in Belfast had hundreds of onlookers singing along to famous songs reimagined to reference his two panda hand puppets – including the lyrics “Woah Black Betty, panda hands” to the tune of Ram Jam’s 1977 hit.

“It’s just fun and just about joy, trying to make a bit of joy into the adult world,” he told PA after his performance.

Comedian Paul Curry wore a white dress for his set at Glastonbury on Thursday (PA)

Mr Curry, who is doing two shows a day at Glastonbury, said he is inspired by early acts by American comedian Steve Martin but also by children he teaches at a circus school in Belfast.

Mr Curry said he is inspired by American comedian Steve Martin and children he teaches at a circus school in Belfast (PA)
Sorry, we are not accepting comments on this article.