Morecambe Poetry Festival 2024 at various venues
Sarah-Clare Conlon, Literature Editor
Our Tourist Telescope is set on the coast – more specifically, Morecambe Poetry Festival, back for a third year with an impressive line-up now spread over two venues: the wonderful Winter Gardens and upstairs at The King’s Arms.
Setting the tone for the weekend, the Friday-night headliners are comedy folk music poet Mike Harding plus festival friend Henry Normal, regularly published by Salford’s Flapjack Press. Also just out with Flapjack, comedy actor, writer and impressionist Alistair McGowan will be taking to the stage on Saturday night, as will Sunday Times bestselling poet Donna Ashworth. Donna is also judge of the first-ever Morecambe Poetry Festival competition, with winners invited to read over the weekend and their submissions included in this year’s festival anthology. The festival comes to a close on Sunday with performances from both “national treasure” Pam Ayres and “literary institution” Lemn Sissay.
Other performers include Manchester scene regular potty-mouthed Thick Richard as well as the award-winning Jamaican-British poet Raymond Antrobus MBE FRSL. On the new second stage you can expect to find poets as wide ranging as Manchester’s Tony Walsh and Poet Laureate for the City of Wolverhampton 2020-22 Emma Purshouse, plus Atilla the Stockbroker, Kate Fox, Helen Ivory, Martin Figura, Steve Pottinger, Ollie Sykes and Chris Lynam. More are due to be confirmed, so keep an eye on the festival’s social channels.
This year, for the first time, the BBC will be on site, bringing two of its leading Radio 4 spoken word and performance shows to the festival. Loose Ends will take place Friday 20 September at 6pm and The Verb presented by Ian McMillan – described by former Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy as “world-class – one of today’s greatest poetry performers” – will take place on Saturday 21 September 5.45pm to 7pm.
There will also be open mic sessions allowing new and emerging poets the chance to try out new material plus free poetry writing workshops led by Big White Shed. Shows and workshops aimed at younger audiences will be running up until 3pm on Saturday and Sunday, with tickets for these capped at £10 plus booking fee.
Morecambe Poetry Festival is supported by Waterstones, TS Eliot Foundation, Morecambe Town Council, Eden Project Communities, Wordsworth Grasmere and the Arts Council England.
