SATURDAY marks the start of the 48th Ludlow Festival, with Glen Walford's production of The Comedy of Errors as its centrepiece, and the Inner Bailey of the castle transformed into a magical and exotic Arabian Nights-style world.

The plot is, predictably for a play with such a title, complicated, characterised by farcical misunderstandings.

As one audience files into Ludlow Castle for the first night of The Comedy of Errors on Saturday, another will be at the Assembly Rooms where Michael Pennington, one of Britain's great actors, with a distinguished CV on stage, radio, film and TV, will be explaining what Shakespeare means to him in Sweet William, a one-man show about his lifelong relationship with the Bard.

"It's not an anthology show of best bits. It's a eulogy or a love letter to your best pal," he explained. "It's like a life-long marriage. It's 52 years since I was taken to a Shakespeare play for the first time."

And, when you're not immersed in things Shakespearean, there is plenty going on elsewhere. Tours, talks, concerts and entertainment form a wide range of exciting events.

Where else could you catch in the same fortnight, a chat with Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, a coach trip on the trail of Mary Webb, a Rossini opera in English and three lunchtime string quartet concerts?

A mouth-watering list of speakers, includes, as well as Andrew Motion, news presenter George Alagiah, gardening experts Nigel Colburn, James Alexander Sinclair and Rosie Atkins, and the man with the swing-ometer, Peter Snow.

The youthful Guillami String Quartet has been a welcome visitor since 2001, and will this year play in three churches in and around Ludlow with programmes that range in time from Haydn to Bliss and Ravel.

In the year of Elgar's 150th anniversary it is appropriate that Manchester Camerata's concert in St Laurence's Church is called Elgar and Beyond, with a programme that also takes in Finzi, Holst and Tippett. Sir Edward features in the Valentini Trio's concert at Stokesay Court on July 2.

The following evening, one of Britain's most distinguished organists, Nicholas Kynaston will play in St Laurence's. On the final Friday of the Festival, the equally distinguished trumpeter Crispian Steele-Perkins will range from Handel to Leroy Anderson in the splendid acoustics of Ludlow Methodist Church.

On Sunday, July 3, the grand finale firework concert will bring the 48th festival to a dramatic close, with performances from two leading tribute acts - Kelly Minogue, a Royal Academy of Music trained vocal impressionist and Dodgie Williams of whom the real Robbie Williams is alleged to have said "yeah, well, I've heard he's very good."