Duke Special proves an early highlight on Friday at Latitude

Latitude, now in its fifth year, run by the Festival Republic and with several sponsors including Word magazine (which is sponsoring a 6000 capacity marquee), prides itself on being a small boutique festival that hosts a broad spectrum of the arts - not just music! So, in addition to music across several stages, there is also a large comedy arena, a theatre tent as well as an outdoor theatre stage amongst the trees in the Faraway Forest, a cabaret venue, popular poetry and literature venues, a Children's Area, a lovely Waterfront stage next to the lake and a film and music arena. These are all an integral part of a packed programme which caters for around 35,000 people.

Latitude is also bestowing a couple of awards – the Latitude New Act of the Year and, for the first time, the Latitude Contemporary Art Award. Artworks have been commissioned in different mediums and placed around the site. The whole site is well decorated and looks beautiful - a design company called Lavish are responsible for the look and for décor in the main venues. The site is especially magical-looking at night, particularly around the lake with the 3D projected display above the water, fairly lights amongst the trees, lit water lilies floating on the lake, lights along the bridge and the iconic giant illuminated Latitude letters.

The Festival is working towards achieving Industry Green certification and is enthusiastic about recycling, Fairtrade products and using renewable energy sources for power.

Greenpeace has a presence here and are based next to the lake near the Children's Area. Oxfam provides volunteer stewards for the festival and is also giving punters henna tattoos to promote a fair deal on climate change.

A new addition this year is the 'Giant Robot' restaurant, usually to be found in Clerkenwell in London. There are, of course, plenty of food outlets but this is a proper, seated restaurant with real cutlery and crockery, which was taking bookings prior to the festival.

The longest part of the journey to Latitude is the last leg when we've arrived on site and are waiting for the shuttle bus to take us to the entrance gate. The wait is a frustrating hour and a half, and pitching the tent takes an inordinate length of time as the wind is very strong and the ground rock hard!

Down on the main site, the festival is pretty much laid out as last year with the Waterfront stage next to the lake, the Poetry and Literary venues either side of the main thoroughfare after the bridge, the Word arena replaces what was the Uncut arena last year and on the outer reaches of the site is the mainstage, the Obelisk arena. Reassuringly, the trademark multi-coloured sheep are here ambling by the lakeside.

Wendy Cope is in the Poetry tent, reading her poem 'Bloody Men', which she says isn't really anti-men but is about how you feel more attractive when somebody loves you. I move from Cope talking about parodies to David Aaronovitch in the Literary tent tackling paranoia. He's chatting about his book 'Voodoo Histories', which is basically dissing conspiracy theories. He explains the concept of the "catastrophe of indifference", that is that paranoid people believe somebody is out to get them as the alternative, that nobody cares, is unthinkable.

Sadly, I've already missed Russell Kane in the Comedy Arena, who was a revelation last year with his Fakespeare show. Over to the Theatre tent where there's a queue for Duke Special! I wasn't expecting that but am chuffed to see it. Duke and bandmates, Ben Castle and Cian Boylan, present a shortened version of the show that he's been touring recently based on his latest triple album, 'The Stage, A Book and The Silver Screen'. The show suits Latitude perfectly because of its literary and theatrical themes with a dose of comedy thrown in. The major chunk of the show tonight is based on the 'Hector Mann' part of the trilogy (an intriguing and tragically comical silent movie actor), there's one song from 'Huckleberry Finn' (from an unfinished musical by Kurt Weill) and a few tracks from Brecht's 'Mother Courage'. There are several standing ovations and a couple of encores – a heart-rending solo cover of Joy Division's 'Love Will Tear Us Apart', with a restrained singalong from the audience, and a very lively 'Diggin' an Early Grave'. Phill Jupitus and Billy Bragg, who're sat in front of me, seemed to enjoy it and Jupitus later tweeted that it was his highlight of the weekend.
I stop by the entrancing Faraway Forest where the Royal Opera House (ROH2) are performing a fun, bawdy farce called 'Pleasure's Progress', based on William Hogarth's paintings, and later catch a bit of Richard Hawley in the Word arena. He is crooning 'Open Up Your Door' but apparently has bronchitis and apologises to the crowd for not talking to them more.

Back to the Poetry tent. For anyone who thinks poetry is a bit staid, this venue will show them that it is relevant, contemporary and vibrant. For music-lovers, it also has an obvious cross-over with lyrics and several musicians appear in the tent over the weekend – Matt Abbott, of Skint & Demoralised, Tim Booth, James’ frontman, and Eddie Argos of Art Brut. At the moment, the Spoken Word All Stars, four poets and a musician, are performing spoken word interwoven with looped beats.

The National, in the Word venue are competing against Florence And The Machine at the mainstage. It's difficult not to feel resentful about that – I saw Florence play in a small tent at the Secret Garden Party two years ago and she's now headlining and playing to thousands, despite only having one album out. It's a shame when talented and more prolific artists are still playing the small tents but she's had the advantage of some well-placed hype. Still, The National are getting a huge response from the Word crowd.

A bedtime story at midnight – great idea! Daniel Kitson, author and writer, and Gavin Osborn, singer-songwriter, are performing these on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, at the lovely Waterfront stage. They seem surprised at the size of the crowd that has turned out – assembled in front of the stage, all along the bridge and seated on deck chairs on the opposite bank of the lake. Osborn intersperses Kitson's storytelling with little songs, which also tell a tale, on the guitar. Tonight's story, with a twist at the end, transports us to a place where a man and woman are working in "admin", filing strips of paper in labelled drawers in a high-ceilinged room. That sounds a bit fusty and the line that admin work "wearies the fingers and muffles the heart" strikes a chord, but the strips of paper they are filing away so diligently document each act of romantic love such as buying flowers, sleep watching, marriage proposals, which leads into glimpses of other lives; the story is completely engrossing and over too soon.

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