Comedy will be showcased at this year’s Holmfirth Arts Festival. It’s the pinnacle of an event encompassing a huge range of music, literature and visual arts. VAL JAVIN reports

WHETHER your passion is music or comedy, whether you want to write a novel or try your hand at conducting, then Holmfirth is the place to be.

Three weeks of arts events get under way next weekend, showcasing the wealth of local talent in the Holme Valley and giving a platform to some well-known faces too.

Holmfirth Arts Festival runs from June 5-20 in a number of venues in and around Holmfirth.

There will be performances of everything from stand-up comedy to classical music, plus images of the valley reflected in poetry, prose, music and photographs.

The festival is showcasing comedy with the help of Radio 4’s Jo Caulfield, also a regular on TV’s Have I Got News For You, plus Celebrity Masterchef runner-up Hardeep Singh Kohli.

See Manchester comedian Toby Hadoke’s new show Everything I Know I Learned From TV before it premieres at the Edinburgh Fringe later this year and look out for stand-up comic Alex Horne as he explores whether one man can deliberately invent a successful new word in Wordwatching.

If music is more your thing, then the choice is huge.

There’s rightly much excitement about the presence of Martin Simpson at the festival. He is widely acknowledged as one of the finest acoustic and slide guitar players in the world and will be performing with his trio.

A series of lunchtime concerts will feature the Next Generation Artists. Take a bow current Kirklees Young Musician Jenny Stafford and previous holders of the title, Rebecca Robertson (2009) and Sarah Ogden (2006), who will all be performing.

The lunchtime music menu offers everything from Carmen to Chorus Line, a mix of songs from opera and musicals.

The home-grown talents of award-winning mixed-voice choir The Holme Valley Singers will be heard in the evening programme, Greeting Midsummer With Song.

Holmfirth Musical Festival’s Summer Serenade features some of its recent winners, including the Hade Edge Choir and Rebecca Parr.

The Holme Valley Orchestra will play popular classical pieces and here’s your chance to try your hand at conducting.

The orchestra will be playing outside the Old Bridge Hotel during the festival and will welcome anyone wanting to try their hand at conducting in a Maestro Challenge.Š

If Latin American music is more your style, then listen out for nine-piece local band Oye Vamos.

The festival has a diverse literature programme offering events for writers whether they be aspiring or established. The same goes for those who would rather read than write a book.

Local writers will read poetry, prose and short stories to launch their newly-published book, Reflections Of Holme.

And there will be writers’ workshops giving every encouragement to those who have still to write that first big book or a graphic novel complete with illustrations!

Find Poetic Justice in a night of radical rhymes and performance poetry from local poets if the spoken word is your passion.

Festival organisers are delighted to be hosting a members’ print exhibition by the Royal Photographic Society’s Digital Imaging Group.

And new this year is a showcase event in which local artists will talk about their work.

Ceramics maker Jim Robison and Moz Khokhar will each take two or three pieces and describe how they set about creating their work – from the initial concept to a finished work of art.

Masculine/Feminine will be another fascinating evening, with two highly-regarded local artists, Dionne Swift and Mick Kirkby-Geddes.

Mick works with the hardness of metals, welding and sculpting his finds; Dionne creates her pieces from painted devoré and fabric.

There’s theatre, an art market and lots more.

To mark the end of the festival there will be a celebratory concert at Holmfirth Parish Church on June 20 at 7.30pm.

For more details pick up a festival brochure at Kirklees information centres or go online to www.holmfirthartsfestival.co.uk