POET Laureate Carol Ann Duffy will be in North Yoerkshire this summer to perform in the annual Ryedale Festival.

The popular festival will also include a rare public performance by the monks of Ampleforth Abbey and five world premieres of specially commissioned works.

The festival runs from July 11 to 27 and the line up of events has now been announced. Details can be found at ryedalefestival.com

For the first time some concerts will take place in Scarborough, as well as local churches and theatres and long-standing festival venues like Castle Howard, which will host a “triple” concert.

The three contrasting concerts, each around 45 minutes long, will be performed three times in a rolling programme at three different venues in the house as the audience rotates around the three.

The centenary of the start of the First World War will also be honoured with a war theme running through the festival with four new works inspired by the war, and a talk by author Lucy Beckett about her new novel, set during the two world wars.

Once again the festival will present an opera, Monteverdi’s the Coronation of Poppea, performed in Ampleforth College theatre as part of an Italian theme, which will also include a performance of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and an Italian music day at St Mary’s Priory Church in Old Malton.

Alongside dozens of musical performances will be some literary events, with a reading of her own work by poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy in Easingwold's Galtres Centre.