Londoner’s Diary
Has Wilderness lost its crown as the poshest festival in Britain? The three-day knees up in Oxfordshire cemented its reputation as a safe space for Tory chinwagging back in 2017 when a Barbour-clad David Cameron was snapped drinking a glass of white and chuffing a Marlboro gold at one of the VIP bars. But this year, the true blues were nowhere to be seen. We hear that Lord Cameron was busy hosting his own drinks party on Saturday in nearby Chipping Norton, which Jeremy Clarkson went along to.
Meanwhile, speakers at the festival’s Forum stage included die hard Lib Dem John Sweeney and Labour’s Jess Phillips, who spent a solid hour signing books afterwards for a queue which snaked round the figurative block. Phillips’ new book is about the sorry state of politics and will come out on Thursday, but the MP for Birmingham Yardley told us she won’t be doing a book launch because they’re not her style. “I go to enough of them already,” she deadpanned.
While cerebral literary talks and panels took place on one side of the festival, most celebs were to be found at an array of VIP events held by Wilderness sponsors. IHG Hotels threw a daytime bash on Saturday complete with a roving fortune teller, a silhouette artist and two tiny people dressed up as topiary hedges. Game of Thrones actress Sophie Turner was canoodling her aristo boyfriend Peregrine Pearson in one corner, while Professor Green held court in another.
Audi put on a good spread too, with nightly three course dinners from their in-house Michelin chef Rohit Ghai. Guests included the Instagram food duo Topjaw, who enjoyed an opening skit given by comedian Rory Bremner. He joked that it took security “half an hour to get Ed Davey out” of the activity-filled kids area. We also spotted a birkenstock-clad James Norton at the Audi tent, looking fresh off his gap year.
Some Wilderness guests started the weekend in style thanks to luxe men’s magazine The Gentleman’s Journal, who threw their annual long summer lunch at Blenheim Palace. The guestlist was a who’s who of bright young (male) things like actors Ed McVey, who played Prince William in The Crown, The Little Mermaid’s Jonah Hauer-King, and Bridgerton star Victor Alli, as well as comedian Munya Chawawa and trainspotting enthusiast Francis Bourgeois.
