COMEDY fans can experience a new take on the royal wedding at the Brewery's Freerange Comedy Festival 2018.

On Sunday, May 20, the day after Prince Harry and Meghan Markle tie the knot at Windsor Castle, comedian Arthur Smith will be in Kendal performing his new show, In the Footsteps of Coleridge and Princess Meghan.

Described as a "fun-filled historical stroll" telling the "incredible story" of the new royal and her "connection with the town", it will close with a stand-up performance at the Factory Tap pub.

Arthur's Kendal walking tour forms part of a "radical new" Fringe-style revamp for this year's festival - May 18 to 20 - with risqué late-night cabaret, workshops and comedy clubs on the bill alongside traditional stand-up. To create the new feel, the Brewery has teamed up with Julie Tait, of the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. She explained: "I love festivals and I love comedy so I couldn't resist the chance to work with my favourite venue to come up with a twist on Freerange and offer an even better range of comedy experiences."

Mike Jones, the Brewery's head of programming, said he was "delighted" to be working with Julie. "Her enthusiasm, excellent contacts and instinctive funny bones have helped us give the event a different spin this year," he added.

The Freerange line-up includes Tony Allen, known as the Godfather of Alternative Comedy and a major player in the early days of London’s Comedy Store.

Tony will be leading a crash-course workshop in stand-up comedy designed to equip would-be comics with enough technique, know-how and self-confidence to devise and perform an original five-minute act in front of a live audience. Participants will have the chance to showcase these new-found skills during a comedy workshop MC’d by Tony himself.

Among the festival's other highlights will be a live show straight from the pages of anarchic adult comic Viz. Barney Farmer, creator of the Drunken Bakers cartoon, will be doing a performance entitled Barney Farmer Buys Everyone a Small Drink, featuring an animated film of the strip and his own humorous observations.

Madcap comedy performer John Robertson is to present surreal show Dark Room, originally an interactive YouTube Crystal Maze-style game which attracted more than four million views. John transformed the game into a live show and has enjoyed sell-out shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Meanwhile, comedy-loving children will be catered for with a young people’s version of the Dark Room and Jay Foreman’s musical show Disgusting Songs for Revolting Children.

www.breweryarts.co.uk, box office 01539-725133.