Glastonbury 2024: Watch BBC News' Ros Atkins play drum and bass set during festival debut

BBC News analysis editor, Ros Atkins, has dropped a drum and bass remix of the BBC News theme at his first-ever DJ set at Glastonbury.

Ditching the newsroom for the decks, Atkins made his debut gig at Worthy Farm in Somerset this afternoon, playing his set in the Stonebridge Bar for a crowd of delighted fans. The crowd were going totally mad for Ros," one Glastonbury goer in the crowd for the journalist's performance told the Mirror. "The tent is totally packed."

Speaking ahead of his surprise set, Atkins revealed how his festival appearance came about and how he planned to give the BBC News theme a fresh spin.

Ros DJing with others

It was "complete chance" that led him to chat with the original composer, David Lowe, on Radio 4's The Media Show. "I messaged him a couple of days later, and I said 'you can say no to this of course but would you be open to us looking at a remix of your theme' and he just said straight away 'yeah, that's great'," Atkins told BBC Radio 6 Music.

Despite neither having a background in drum and bass, they enlisted the help of DJ and producer Chrissy Chris. "So before I knew it, I was on a WhatsApp group with me, David Lowe, the composer of the BBC News theme, and Chrissy Chris, drum and bass heavyweight, and the three of us started plotting out what we could do."

Atkins unveiled the track during his Saturday performance at the Stonebridge Bar stage, joining a star-studded line-up featuring Rudimental, Jamz Supernova, and Idris Elba. The BBC broadcaster shared his hectic experience, recalling having a "slightly crazy 24 hours" before arriving at Glastonbury.

Ros djing with others

He'd previously hosted the prime ministerial debate in Nottingham for the BBC News channel on Wednesday, detailing: "I was on between 5pm and 8pm and then got back into London late on Wednesday night, got up very early on Thursday morning, drove here (and) was into the park area where we're staying at about 11am."

Speaking on the sheer size of the festival, he said, "My main impressions are, and I know I'm not the first to say it, the scale of it." He expressed amazement at the expanse of the event, stating, "Until you see it, you can't quite believe it, because when you're watching it on the TV you pick up all the different artists and the different stages, but you perhaps don't realise that there are also multiple other medium and smaller venues all at full tilt all of the time." He ended on a jovial note about navigating the festival's layout: "So I've just been trying to take it in and also just try to not get lost."

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