Welcoming The Wombles To Glastonbury

News last week that The Wombles have been lined up to play the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury 2010 teetered precariously between the sublime and the ridiculous. Though many may quibble with a back catalogue including the likes of The Wombling Song, Remember You're A Womble and that time worn classic Let's Womble To The Party Tonight, there is much to be said for the merits of a cheeky guilty pleasure booking.

The standard muso line thrown at such tea time slots is that they take the place of many more worthy acts but does anyone really want to see a reformed Pavement at the precise point during a standard festival day plan where units of alcohol in one’s bloodstream vastly outweigh attention span?

The Glastonbury festival especially has some pedigree in the field of cheesy Sunday afternoon entertainment with Dame Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones and Status Quo knocking out recent greatest hits marathons for an adoring if utterly intoxicated public. Admittedly, having previously disbanded in 1976, Wimbledon Common’s answer to the Goldie Lookin Chain don’t have quite the same levels of prestige as the above but this can soon be solved with a Topman collection of branded vintage t-shirts, a dubstep remix of The Womble Shuffle and a support slot on the forthcoming Jedward arena tour.

As the Worthy Farm rumour mill gradually kicked into overdrive this year one of the first acts to be confirmed for the annual bash by the unremittingly trustworthy efestivals was Bodger & Badger on the Kidz Stage. Though their enduring popularity across all ages has struck a chord in retro kid’s TV revivalism with many a haggard punter, the real credit/blame for The Wombles’ booking though, as with most musical dilemmas, can be placed at the doorstep of the Kaiser Chiefs.

Whereas the comedy of a mashed-potato war would doubtless probably prove a challenge to recreate on big screens in a field full of thousands, in the case of the use of oversized animals onstage the now legendary appearance of the Kaisersaur during Ricky Wilson and co’s 2005 Pyramid Stage slot set an unremitting precedent. Such was the fervour that greeted this inflatable harbinger of fun that the NME actually gave away the monster in a competition to find him a home worthy of his stature.

Of course when the full Glastonbury line-up is released in May, it could turn out I’ve wasted my morning elaborating on idle tabloid speculation but no small part of me hopes this isn’t the case. On the 40th anniversary of their festival Michael and Emily Eavis would do well to remember the spirit of their annual bash lies in not only headline sets, mud baths and mile long fences but the wacky, inoffensive and good old fashioned fun.