THE Autumn in Malvern Festival is returning for its 23rd year with another celebration of the arts and the town’s rich history.

The month-long festival, running throughout October, attracts a variety of musicians, poets, writers, filmmakers and other artists.

Each year artistic director Peter Smith selects a particular “thematic strand”.

“This year the festival features eminent people associated with the famous Malvern Festival of 1929-39, including George Bernard Shaw, Barry Jackson, Dame Laura Knight and Edward Elgar,” he said.

Sir Michael Holroyd, Shaw’s biographer, will be giving a talk at Stanbrook Abbey at Callow End village, where the legendary playwright often visited, on Sunday, October 21, while artist Dame Laura Knight is the subject of an illustrated talk by David Tovey at Colwall Village Hall on Saturday, October 13.

Sir Edward Elgar, meanwhile, will feature in a sequence of music and literature by the Aldwyn Voices chamber choir in the Great Hall at Malvern College on Saturday, October 20.

On the literary side, the Dymock Poets are strongly represented with three talks and a dramatic presentation on American poet Robert Frost, while Peter Sutton will mark the 650th anniversary of William Langland’s The Vision of Piers Plowman.

The festival has always been strongly associated with classical music and this year’s events include a performance by Sofya Gulyak and an organ recital at Malvern Priory by Stephen Cleobury, accompanied by violinist Julia Hwang.

The festival’s showpiece concert will be given by the London Concertante in Malvern College’s Great Hall on Saturday, October 27.

Entitled An English Idyll it will celebrate the Diamond Jubilee year with works by English composers.

The festival runs from Saturday, September 29, until Sunday, October 28.

Full details are available at malvernfestival.co.uk, and tickets are available by calling 01684 892277.