The Festival

It seems disinegnous to criticise a film for something it's not but The Festival is a bittersweet watch knowing that it's highly unlikely that we'll see The Inbetweeners on our screens again.

With a lot of the writing and production team on board, and real life couple Joe Thomas and Hannah Tointon headlining the cast, we'll forgive you the deja vu.

Graduate Nick is brutally dumped by girlfriend Caitlin (at his graduation ceremony no less in a watch-through-your-fingers moment) and takes to the titular music event with best mate Shane (MVP Hammed Animashaun.) It's a premise that could easily have equated to the third Inbetweeners movie as the usual hilarity ensues, split equally between banter and gross-out.

I'll stop mentioning the elephant in the room now though because The Festival stands on its own as a great British comedy, it's merely a victim of circumstance.

The humour comes thick and fast, as to be expected given the small scale of the events and setting, and whilst some jokes are fairly obvious and play to stereotype, there's a few unexpected twists and turns here to keep things fresh.

A slew of impressive cameos (Nick Frost, Noel Fielding, Jermaine Clement, Sleaford Mod's Jason Williamson) add to the main cast who are uniformly excellent. The aforementioned Animashaun anchors proceedings with Love's Claudia O'Doherty and Thomas proves he can lead a film on his own without his fellow Inbetweeners (damn, mentioned them again) even if his character doesn't deviate very far from our beloved Simon Cooper.

So, yes, we've been here before but The Festival is a relatable, rib tickling comedy with some great moments (love the Pulp Fiction reference.)

The Brit-com is something to treasure and The Festival is a great example, just let down by the what-if.

3 stars ***