POET Roger McGough is set to return to the stage he graced 30 years ago as he opens Bewdley Festival in October.

Having performed alongside fellow Liverpool poet Brian Patten at the first ever Bewdley Festival in 1988, Roger McGough returns to the stage on opening night on Friday, October 6.

In what is a significant year for him - as well as the Festival which is celebrating its 30th anniversary - Roger will celebrate with a great show, this time performing alongside LiTTLe MACHiNe and featuring a selection of vintage, classic and surprising poems set to music.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Roger's iconic, top-selling Penguin Modern Poets No.10 - The Mersey Sound, the republishing of the 1967 poem of love and lust, broken promises and unfettered dreams, Summer with Monika and his New and Selected Poems will be published in November to celebrate his 80th birthday.

Dave Collins, festival director, said: "It is really great that, having appeared at the very first Bewdley Festival in 1988, Roger McGough returns to open the celebrations for Festival’s 30th anniversary.

"Roger will be appearing with LiTTLe MACHiNe in a great show that combines music and poetry and, inevitably, culminates in a mass rendition of ‘Lily the Pink’, Scaffold’s 1968 hit.

"It will be a great start to Bewdley Festival 2017. "

Bewdley Festival "Thirty for 30" will run between Friday, October 6, and Sunday, October 15 - but the 30th anniversary celebrations have already started with an additional ten events organised across the year.

These began with a sell-out performance by Max Keen at St George's Hall in January, and there are two more of his history lecturers scheduled in April and May.

His show on Saturday, April 1, will be about the history of Dudley Castle, while on Saturday, May 15, the story of Sir Francis Drake.

On Tuesday (February 21) the Hall's cinema featured another in the popular series of Exhibition on Screen arts films that journeyed to the Hague to appreciate the works of Vermeer. The next 'journey' will be on Tuesday, May 9, to the Barnes Foundation, in Philadelphia, to explore the works of Renoir.

Turning to music, Peacock Angell will showcase their unique blend of contemporary and folk music to St George's Hall on Friday, March 24, and an evening presentation called "The History of Jazz" is planned for Friday, April 21.

Further "Thirty for 30" events will be organised for later in the year in the run-up to the Festival in October.