TWO of the biggest names coming to this year's Devizes Festival are actor Brian Blessed and middle east hostage Terry Waite.

Blessed will be at the Corn Exchange on June 11 chatting to his audience and being a raconteur as he recounts stories of adventure on and off stage.

The actor, who is still best remembered by many as PC Fancy Smith in the BBC's Z cars, has a career spanning six decades.

In recent years his sonorous voice has been heard in many big roles on stage and the small screen in performances from Shakespeare to musicals.

He is also an adventurer and was the oldest man to get to to 28,500ft without oxygen and to trek to the magnetic North Pole on foot.

Mr Waite was advisor to the Archbishop of Canterbury when he was captured in Beirut in 1987 and spent 1,763 days in captivity. He will be in Devizes Town Hall on June 20 to talk his first venture into fiction writing.

The Voyage Of The Golden Handshake is a comic novel that follows retired shop worker Albert Hardcastle and retired Admiral Sir Benbow Harrington as they head off on the boat's maiden cruise. He will be signing books after his talk.

On the same evening at the Corn Exchange Showstoppers will perform a new musical created from scratch everytime they perform.

Each night audience suggestions are transformed into an all-singing, all-dancing production with hilarious results. They have become a must-see act at Edinburgh Fringe and have done four sell-out West End seasons and an acclaimed BBC4 series. They can do anything from Sondheim on a ski lift to Cole Porter in Poundland.

Sandwiched between the two heavyweights will be Cafe Scientific at the One Spice Indian Restaurant.

Dr Simon Cripps will ask: Has Science Failed To Save Our Oceans.

For those who want to get out and about Wiltshire Wildlife Trust is organising a walk on June 21 around Jones's Mill nature reserve at Pewsey.