FRANK Skinner will be starring in a show about a famous Cumbrian poet as part of celebrations on Sky Arts.

Sky Arts has marked its first anniversary as a free-to-air channel by announcing a raft of new programmes spanning every genre of the arts.

Frank Skinner and Denise Mina are back on the road together tracking the footsteps of seminal poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

There is also a new theatre and performance season, Sky Arts On Stage, that will kick off in November. This will include Play in a Day, in which acting and dance graduates are given the chance to join one of three creative teams staging a 15-minute production in just 24 hours.

Phil Edgar Jones, Director, Sky Arts and Entertainment, said: "To mark our year anniversary as a free to air channel we are proud to be bringing some incredible theatre to screen at a time when the performing arts is only just emerging from the hardest 18 months imaginable. Despite those difficulties it’s inspiring to witness the great innovations our artists and institutions have dreamt up as culture has adapted to bring audiences brilliant work in new, exciting hybrid forms… it’s a real treat to be providing a home for such stellar talent on the channel.”