FOLK fans are looking forward to the fifth Purbeck Folk Festival, which takes at Wilkswood Farm, near Swanage.

The highlights of this year’s festival include multi-BBC Radio 2 folk award winners Karine Polwart and Show of Hands – both the cream of contemporary folk singers and undeniably the strongest current forces in acoustic music.

Previous headline acts have included KT Tunstall and Seth Lakeman and the festival recently won Best Countryside Festival Award.

Festival director Paul Burke said: “The festival has grown steadily in four years to just under 2,000 weekend tickets, so we are able to book more top-name folk acts.”

There are also sounds from urban shanty hip-hop beat poet Dizraeli and his seven-piece band, the Small Gods.

More traditional folk music comes courtesy of Celtic diddly virtuoso Urban Folk Quartet and folk songwriters Martha Tilston and Pete Morton.

From across the pond, Carrie Rodriguez, the charismatic Mexican-Texan fiddle-singer, headlines on Friday night.

More American-style banjo/ fiddliness includes banjo-God, Leon Hunt and his N-tet and the Carrivick Sisters.

For dancing galore from the Deep South, Louisiana Cajun band Sarah Savoy and the Francadians play with a cajun dance workshop in the afternoon. And if you like your dancing, the festival has two ceilidh bands booked to show you how.

And it’s not all for grown-ups, Purbeck Folk Festival has a whole weekend of great entertainment for the kids too.

This year sees the addition of a storytelling tent and cinema tent.

Tickets are now available for the festival, August 23-25, Wilkswood Farm.

For more information visit purbeckfolk.co.uk