Editor's Review: Friendsfest on Clapham Common

Clapham Nub News review FriendsFest on Clapham Common

Could we BE anymore excited to explore FriendsFest on Clapham Common?

FriendsFest may have begun life as a five-day pop up event but in the seven years since, it has morphed into a huge six-week touring fest that this year launched on Clapham Common. On behalf of Clapham Nub News our editor, Issy Millett, went along to suss out if all the hype is deserved.

The One Where I went to FriendsFest

The first episode of Friends aired two years after I was born and by the time I turned 13, so had the last. Friends was the TV show my family agreed on, which for anyone who watched TV with their family in those days will know was a big deal.

That decade between 1994-2004 was one of Blackberries, Bebo and flip phones; of family desktop computers to play SIMs or, when desperate, minesweeper on. It was a time before TV shows could be binged in one sitting, when choosing which to watch almost always involved compromise. For all members of a family to want to watch the same TV series was in a nondescript way, a little miracle, and to sit down for the weekly episode released was a small ritual.

If I was sceptical to be attending a tribute festival to the lives of six fictional characters from the 90s, the wave of nostalgia that hit on arrival brought with it the same warm feeling that watching the show always delivered in childhood.

Upwards of 250 people were dotted around the venue established on Clapham Common's dirt pitch – some at Friends-themed food vans like "Phoebe's Buffay", others in deck chairs to watch Friends clips on the big screen erected.

Elsewhere, one of the bars had named its cocktails with much-loved scenes in mind: think 'Pivot!' (rum, lime and sugar muddled with fresh mint), and 'Salmon-Skin Roll; (gin, lychee, lime, sugar and a twist of lemon).

While the set tour operated like a cattle farm, we being herded to each for photographs instead of slaughter, it was preceded by a small museum of set prop memorabilia. In a glass cabinet was the formal invitation to Monica and Chandler's wedding. On a tatty piece of A4 next to it were Chandler's vows, hand-written quickly on whatever smudged and stained paper he could find.

I have not watched the recently aired Friends Reunion, nor do I play old Friends episodes despite all ten series being right there on Netflix, ready for binging. To me, if Friends bore a cult-following it is because the six characters, and their actors, portrayed a moment in time we all inevitably experience; a time when a way of life we love, and the friends we love who live it with us, start tripping out of sync. Monica, Rachel, Ross, Joey, Phoebe and Chandler came together, captured a moment in time, then carried on growing up.

With childhood memories of being curled over in actual pain from laughing preserved, it was a relief to realise FriendsFest would not burst the bubble by bringing the set to real life.

A well-thought through event filled with genuinely delightful surprises, if I had one criticism it would be the officious manner in which some stewards operated it.

After my friend and I wandered from the bar area with our 'Seven!' cocktails (passionfruit, vanilla, vodka), a bartender ran over to say we couldn't leave with our drinks. Having been oblivious of the rule, we apologised and returned to our table, only for the bar's security guard to whistle us back over and demand to know by what devious methods we managed to sneak past him.

On a separate occasion, we witnessed a couple arrive for their 20.20pm set tour. Faced with queues advertising times for later tours, they asked a steward for help who, whilst pointing them to stand behind us, warned the couple if they'd arrived any later he'd have stopped them from joining any queue. This despite the fact that, checking the time, it was 20.17pm.

Such heavy-handedness, though bizarre for being so unnecessary, did not detract from what was otherwise a really quite wonderful evening tumbling into a time capsule.