LEDBURY Poetry Festival is on line to record its second best year, in terms of ticket sales, and perhaps its best year ever for atmosphere.

The 20th anniversary festival is seeing sizeable audiences at most events this year, compared with 2015, when some events, such as the appearance of Michael Palin, were almost instantly sold out, while other events saw much smaller audiences.

The festival's artistic director, Chloe Garner said: "We've had a lovely atmosphere this year, and the town is really bustling. People are seeing the poetry banners around the town, with poems written by local people, and they are really enjoying that. It's really brought the community together, and we've had good audiences at many events."

The Festival is on line to sell around 6000 tickets, compared with last year, the all-time record-breaker, when 7000 tickets were sold.

By mid-week this week, the Festival was reporting tickets sales of around 4000 "so far".

Tickets are still to be had, at the time of writing, for big events including Carol Ann Duffy and Friends at the Community Hall on Saturday, July 9; Juliet Stevenson reading Elizabeth Barrett Browning, also in the Community Hall, on Sunday, July 10; Dessert Island Poems with MP Jesse Norman on Saturday, July 9, and for another Desert Island Poems event, with writer and artist Edmund de Waal, on Friday, July 8.

For those who missed some of the action from the first half of the festival, here are some reviews to provide the flavour.

The full programme can be viewed at: http://www.poetry-festival.co.uk/2016-programme/