LATITUDE ANNOUNCES A WHOLE NEW SCIENCE ARENA: ‘THE COSMIC SHAMBLES FOREST OF SCIENCE AND CULTURE’

• 28th Apr 2025

Latitude Festival has announced the arrival of an all-new Science-focused arena for 2025 — The Cosmic Shambles Forest of Science and Culture— a bold and wondrous new space at the heart of Henham Park, curated by the award-winning independent team at The Cosmic Shambles Network.

This brand-new arena will be unlike anything Latitude has hosted before. In their unique style, and drawing on 19 years of curating shows at Latitude, the Cosmic Shambles Forest will be part science festival, part book club, part comedy club, part music gig, part interactive museum, and all wonder! — The Cosmic Shambles Forest is a whole new world of fascination, created for both the curious and the creatively inclined.

Founded by Robin Ince and Trent Burton, The Cosmic Shambles Network delights audiences with live shows, podcasts, and documentaries that blend science and culture in joyful, unexpected ways. Whether it’s particle physics through stand-up comedy, midnight bookshop takeovers, or puppetry about space dogs, Shambles consistently serves up brain food with a side of mischief.

“The addition of the Cosmic Shambles Forest to this year’s Latitude Festival is a genuine thrill,” says Melvin Benn, Founder and Director of Latitude Festival. “It’s a whole new arena filled with ideas, conversation, unexpected experiences, and world-class talent. There’s nowhere else that brings together oceanographers, comedians, astrophysicists, musicians, poets, and puppet dogs in quite the same way. This is something truly special for 2025.”

Trent Burton, the Cosmic Shambles Network Producer and Co-Founder, said, “Latitude is always one of our favourite events of the year, and after infiltrating various stages around the festival for the past 19 years, we are beyond thrilled to have our own stage, and area no less, for the 2025 edition. We’re going to bring our unique Shambles flavour to the forest over the whole weekend, so expect all manner of science, comedy, music, poetry, literature and all other manner of culture and counter-culture mashed together to create a whole host of special one-off events. Oh, and of course, we’ll have a few special surprises in store as well…”

Robin Ince, comedian, author, broadcaster and co-founder of the Cosmic Shambles Network, said ‘The Latitude festival has been such a wonderful place to create art and chaos – sometimes for events that have existed for one night only others have continued to blossom and grow – it is a field of vivid creativity under magnificent skies. We’re very excited to have our own Shambles area to add to that this year.”

A familiar face to fans of The Cosmic Shambles Network, Dr. Helen Czerski is a physicist, oceanographer, and author. She said,  “The audience at Latitude love new ideas, and are definitely up for satisfying their curiosity alongside getting their fill of music and sun. It’s such a lovely place to share science, and what better place to ponder new and interesting ideas than a relaxed weekend in the sunshine? I love being part of it all”

At the heart of the Cosmic Shambles Forest will be The Apollo, a dedicated stage and performance space that will play host to a rich programme of live talks, podcasts, music, panels, performances, family events, late-night screenings, and more. Expect topics as wide-ranging as climate science, horror cinema, particle physics, literature, neurodiversity, space exploration, mental health, and maggots. (Yes, there will be maggots.)

By day, the Forest will be bursting with energy, with live science talks, thrilling hands-on experiments, and curious minds at work. Museum Street will be packed with interactive exhibits and pop-up mini-museums from incredible places such as the National Physical Laboratory, Royal Museums Greenwich, the Crab Museum, and loads more surprises around every corner. By night, it transforms into a woodland cinema screening Cosmic Shambles documentary features, followed by Robin Ince’s Uncanny Film Club, showing something strange, obscure, and unmissable, hand-picked by Robin himself.

There’ll be a café, a bar, a bookshop, and a cluster of Discovery Sheds where audiences of all ages can poke, prod, puzzle, and play their way through fascinating exhibits and meet experts, scientists and performers.  

On Thursday, things get eerie with An Uncanny Hour: Live Late Night, diving into strange pop culture curiosities with Reece Shearsmith (Inside No. 9)  and Robin Ince. On Friday night, the Listening Post will host a very special Nine Lessons for Latitude — a live variety night of science, stories, and silliness presenting a slice of what audiences can find in the Cosmic Shambles Forest throughout the weekend. 

The Cosmic Shambles Forest brings together an astonishing line-up of humans, all united by a passion for ideas, imagination, and making the world more wonderful and weird. Get ready to be curiously entertained and entertainingly curious. Amongst the trees of The Cosmic Shambles Forest, there is something for everyone.

Featuring:

• Robin Ince – Multi-award-winning comedian, broadcaster and bibliomaniac; co-creator of The Infinite Monkey Cage and The Cosmic Shambles Network.
• Dr Helen Czerski – Oceanographer, physicist, author of Blue Machine and one of the UK’s most beloved science broadcasters.
• Reece Shearsmith – Creator of Inside No 9 and The League of Gentlemen; a master of horror, humour and the uncanny.
• Dame Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock – Space scientist, broadcaster and co-host of The Sky at Night.
• Professor Chris Lintott – Astrophysicist and co-host of The Sky at Night.
• Professor Chris Jackson – Geoscientist, broadcaster and former Royal Institution Christmas Lecturer.
• Dr Erica McAlister – Senior Curator of Diptera at the Natural History Museum, fly expert in, and science communicator extraordinaire.
• David McAlmont – Celebrated singer-songwriter, art historian and essayist.
• Bec Hill – Comedian, flipchart fanatic, podcaster and livewire performer.
• Professor Kevin Fong – Anaesthetist, space medicine expert, and presenter of 13 Minutes to the Moon.
• Dr Camilla Pang – Award-winning author and computational biologist.
• Dr Clara Nellist – CERN particle physicist and physics communicator.
• Dr Suze Kundu – Nanochemist and broadcaster with a knack for making the tiny huge.
• Joanna Neary – Comedian, puppeteer and creator of cult character Celia in Wife on Earth.
  Professor Pragya Agarwal – Behavioural scientist, author and expert on gender and social equity.
• Rebecca Achieng Ajulu-Bushell – Former British champion swimmer, now author and CEO of the 10,000 Interns Foundation.
• Lewis Hancox – Filmmaker, illustrator and author of Welcome to St Hell.
  Subhadra Das – Historian of science, broadcaster and expert on the legacy of scientific racism.
• Nikesh Shukla – Author, screenwriter and editor of The Good Immigrant.
• Dr Suzi Gage – Psychologist and host of Say Why to Drugs.
• Steve Pretty – Musician and podcast host of The Origin of the Pieces.
  Professor David Ho – Oceanographer and climate scientist studying the ocean’s role in carbon removal.
• Lucia Osborne-Crowley – Legal journalist and author of The Lasting Harm.
• Vanessa Ruck (The Girl on a Bike) – Motorbike adventurer and advocate for resilience and recovery.
• Trent Burton – Producer, director and co-founder of the Cosmic Shambles Network.
• Lori Hopkins – Puppeteer and performer bringing Laika the Space Dog to life.
• Mama G – Award winning panto dame and storyteller

And many more to be announced (and not announced)….

With its roots deep in creativity, curiosity, and a little bit of chaos, The Cosmic Shambles Forest is set to become an unmissable Latitude destination. Whether you come to laugh, learn, listen, or just get lost in wonder (you won’t actually get ‘lost’, there’ll be signs), this new arena is a journey into where human ingenuity and imagination can take us.