FIVE days of music, dance, poetry, craft, singing, talks, exhibitions, storytelling, open studios, artisan wares, food and drink, photography, films and a whole lot more are on offer as the annual Bishops Castle Arts Festival gets under way next Wednesday, February 20.

Brochures with full listings are available and the festival headquarters at the Town Hall opens on Wednesday, February 20, and will be open 10am to 4pm every day for information and tickets.

The Castle Players staged a show for Christmas so there is no pantomime as part of the festival this year but there will be live music for families and children of all ages at 5pm on Friday, February 22, at the SpArC theatre with David Gibb’s 'Climb That Tree'.

Journey through David’s hilarious and often surreal imagination in a world where bears live in the cupboard under the stairs, wolves are roaming the corridors at school, and trips to the moon are a regular occurrence.

Be entranced as David introduces his magical musical tree and, as each flower opens, shares a new song to sing along with.

David’s songwriting draws from a wide range of musical influences, deftly blending folk, jazz, reggae and rock and roll.

Promoted by Arts Alive, tickets cost £7.50, or £30 for up to five people including at least one adult.

Organiser Sue Wilmer says: “The unique thing about Bishops Castle Arts Festival is that almost all the events are free. Some workshops charge for materials used and some of the concerts make a charge, but we find people are very generous in making donations on the day.

Workshops will include a 'Whack It Smack It' family event with musicians helping kids make their own instruments from scrap materials on Wednesday afternoon, and a 'Scraptastic' morning of junk modelling with Liz Still on Thursday.

Guitarist Peter Donegan, son of skiffle music king Lonnie Donegan and one of the contenders in the current series of TV’s 'The Voice', will be playing and singing at the Three Tuns next Friday night.

With the arrival of Deborah Alma, the 'Emergency Poet', as a Bishops Castle resident, poetry events will include an open mic evening at Bank House on Wednesday night, a young person’s poetry workshop, and a consultation with Deborah at her poetry surgery

Talks available will include subjects as diverse as the writer Iris Murdoch, the island of Crete, Robert Clive and a doctor’s wife in Clunbury.

Other events will include the Castle Artists exhibition, the Great BC Bake Off competition, an organ recital, a Knitwits meeting, a cartoon drawing workshop, the awarding of the Children’s Short Story competition prize, a comedy club night, Three Tuns brewery tours and an orchestral concert, all leading up to the final Border Morris Gala Night on Sunday, February 24, at the Three Tuns, with Morris dancing, instrumentalists and singers.