In a slight move from the usual theme of Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents, we’re not off to Tenerife or Thailand but Sundown Festival in Norfolk where parents find out whether their kids are able to sustain a cleaning regime over three days with nothing to help them but a three for two deal on wet wipes.
First, we meet Harry, who is so beautiful he could be a part time model. And he is! His parents are Christian, and Harry has a real understanding of the ways of the cross - as in, what makes his Mum cross. He keeps bringing back girls from nights out, banging a load of laughing gas and making friends with the collective intellectual power of something you might scrape from under a table at Burger King. 'We’re looking forward to getting HAMMERRRRRED!' yells Ben or Sam, representing the West Country slightly less sympathetically than Justin Lee Collins. The first time we see them, they’re vomiting, and that’s their most powerful moment of screen presence.
Hazza has covered vanity, and his Stoke counterpart Hannah is looking after sloth. Hannah is incapable of pouring her own juice from her fridge, her Mum keeps her in clean knickers and her Dad looks after her Louboutin needs, although hasn’t told his daughter that the last syllable isn’t pronounced as in 'of baked beans'. Hannah and her best pal Rochelle plan to have threesomes every night. 'I met her through a mutual friend, she didn’t like me much at first,' explains Hannah. Then Rochelle figured out Hannah had a Dad who was happy to pick up bar tabs.
On arrival, Harry is so very festival that one can only assume he has come straight from a shoot with Millets. Wearing a giraffe onesie, he pledges to down a shot of cider a minute for a hundred minutes, as well as poking Sam and Ben with his erection in the morning. What is it with these kids and threesomes?! Next time we see him, glowsticks are fused to his fingers and he has snogged seven girls, even though he didn’t fancy any of them. What a charitable chap. Hannah is having less fun, as, like most knockoff Louboutin wearing princesses, she can’t put up a tent. And then she spends £30 on showers for herself and Rochelle. Eventually they make it out, which is gratifying because we discover that Rochelle dances like she’s in the Selfridges changing room stuck in a £500 pleather jumpsuit that she has to get out of quickly before someone notices she’s buggered the zip. Hannah loses her handbag, unsympathetic Rochelle grouses 'My bank card’s in there,' - yes, but we’ve yet to see you lose it, lady - and then Hannah discovers that an official has it and hugs them hard enough to dislodge their high vis vest. 'Sleep tonight, sex tomorrow,” is their plan. It’s good to stick to a schedule. If only they can find a tent. 'I need a wee wee,' keens Rochelle tearfully.
Harry has also gone back to his tent, with two girls - generously he’s brought one for Ben. We hear slurping, and possibly the words 'suck me off'. Where’s Sam? Is he vomiting somewhere? We’d all rather see that, to be honest. The next morning Harry, er, fills us in. 'I got a little bit of action but not much, I was stuck with a hard on all night. She was a bit boring.' Not like Harry and his pals, who are so exciting that they then drink each others’ wee. From the same bottle.
Hannah has fifty quid left and spends it on having her make up done. She tries to get more money out and her card gets declined. Rochelle laughs. She rings her Dad, who puts fifty quid in her account. She doesn’t say thank you. She sulks. Rochelle laughs harder. Rochelle, Hannah has kept you in hot water and face paint for the last twelve hours. Be a bloody pal, eh?
The parents are here and they’re predictably horrified by the shagging and piss drinking. And poor Hannah’s Mum has to hear the details of her daughter’s threesome. At least Rochelle’s Mum isn’t here, because her daughter is starting on people she meets on the dance floor, possibly because they have the audacity to wear nice scarves! And she’s cracking onto people by feeling their faces. Hannah looks utterly miserable. We think she might be about to lose her handbag again.
After a triple vodka and red bull, Harry gets his nipple pierced, which means that sexually, he’s out of action for about half an hour. So he gets emotional about his parents. That will make them feel better about all the bodily fluids. Hannah’s mum and her pal are given Morph suits which cover their faces, and told to go and spy on some tent chat. We learn Hannah is worried that she’s not ready for uni, and describes leaving her Mum being 'as if we’ve been in a relationship for 18 years and we’re breaking up!' That’s so much more worrying than the threesome.
After another night of substandard trance and a shot of cinnamon, Harry’s parents turn up to shout at him but he’s far too hungover to understand what’s going on. We think he’s promised not to drink any more urine, which is an achievement. Hannah tells her Mum to leave, then changes her mind when she thinks she might have some food on her. Mum isn’t so cross about her daughter’s financial incontinence as the threesome business. 'It’s something you…keep to yourself,' she says, gently. 'Shit happens!' explains Hannah, which sounds exactly like the life philosophy of a girl who will always be too scatty to remember where she’s supposed to be sleeping and what she did with her wallet.
Festivals, Sex And Suspicious Parents was gloriously inconclusive. I think the message was that if you want to go on a metaphorical journey, you have to get on an actual plane - chucking a load of teens in a field is going to be as enlightening as sending a Portaloo sample to a lab for analysis. But we viewers have learned to beware Harry’s erection and any situation Rochelle might be looking to start in the fields of Norfolk.
Follow Daisy Buchanan on Twitter @NotRollerGirl
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.