A COMEDY fringe festival is being held for the first time alongside the Bedale Music Festival.

The event is being organised by the Hemelvaart Bier Cafe.

Phil Walker said they wanted to capitalise on the successful music and comedy events they have been running at the cafe.

He added: "We’ve booked some amazing artists to perform, we’re working with a company called Hilarity Bites for the comedy, they will be doing a live recording of their Star Radio programme.

“We are really excited about all of these acts, really high quality musicians with lots of award-winning comedians. We also have a couple of surprise intimate sets from members of our live lineup at the cafe.”

The festival runs from Friday, May 29 to Sunday, May 31, running alongside BAMfest and events include Fringe music on Saturday from 1pm to 11pm at the Chantry Hall which includes Cattle & Cane, Sam Brookes, Samantha Durnan, Beth Macari and Tallulah Rendall with Greg Russell and Ciaran Algar, the BBC 2 Folk award winners and Daniel Duke who appeared on TV's The Voice.

On Sunday it is Hilarity Bites Comedy Spectacular. For more information go to bamfringe.co.uk