Surreal storm sweeps ashore at Sidmouth

The South Coast of England seethed with subversive fervour this summer as Diego Brown and the Good Fairy threw down the gauntlet to the world of popular music.

Performing four gigs over two days at the 46th Sidmouth International Festival, and a further three at the Towersey festival, Oxfordshire, Britain’s best unsinged act changed forever the way people will listen to music.

With their unique blend of tortilla-shaped songs and smokey bacon flavoured sound, the rose-petalled revolutionaries ran a long skewer through the icons of indie, the casket of country and the pebbledash of pop to serve up a ‘deliciously weird’ kebab roasted lightly over the intense flame of inspiration.

"Peering through the window of the Bedford Hotel, I was transfixed by surreal brother sister act Diego Brown and the Good Fairy", said Froots reviewer Colin Irwin.

Some 1500 people nodded along with the nodding dog backing singers, and more than 100 closet kazoo players cast off their inhibitions to join the glamorous guitar-accordion-bicycle wheel combo on a trip down Muttering Lane.

"The talk of the chip van queue", said one satisfied customer. "Best thing at the festival", said another. "You changed my life" would have been nice but no one actually said it.

From a Photo-me booth in London’s Brown Quarter, the tuneful two attributed their runaway success to hard work and a strict upbringing. "We want to thank everyone who came to see us and stayed, bought the record, danced a bit, then went home and told their friends. Thank you. If we have touched the lives of just one person with our music, the hours of sweating over which shirt to wear, which song to do first, and whether to use wholemeal or processed flour in the fairy cakes, will not have been in vain."

"Anyone who did not return the kazoo or swannee whistle, we hope to see you next year", they added.

Large record companies with shedloads of cash are thought to be parked outside the booth in a desperate bid to sign the band, although some may be people wiating to get their passport photos taken.