Singers reflect on their North West roots at the Lytham Festival

Over the next 10 days around 200,000 festival goers will descend upon Lancashire for the Lytham Festival.

However, the festival had more humble beginnings back in 2010 when it was called the Lytham Proms - a one day picnic that featured singer Lesley Garrett.

Since then, the festival has swelled in popularity with headliners over the years including Rita Ora, Olly Murs and Rod Stewart.

Its history has been dominated by North West stars including Blackpool-born singer and musical theatre actress, Jodie Prenger.

She performed at Lytham in 2016 and calls the coastal town her "home from home."

Singer-songwriter Rae Morris, also from Blackpool, fondly remembers going down to the beach and that family roots are never too far from her stardom - her grandmother lives five minutes away from the festival site.

Martine McCutcheon, who famously played Tiffany Mitchell in EastEnders and launched a pop career, is also fond of the people of Lytham St Annes.

She said: "The crowd are just so friendly! As I was driving through the crowds, everyone was waving - I felt like the Queen, it was lovely!"

Bury-born Guy Garvey, lead singer and lyricist of the rock band Elbow, also has family connections to Lytham.

He enjoys playing to his home crowd, and fondly remembers playing at Blackpool's Empress Ballroom: "Loads of people came to see us that hadn't seen us before because we're from the area."

This year, after three years of Covid disruption, North West musicians such as Simply Red, Lisa Stansfield, The Lottery Winners and The Charlatans are set to perform thousands of festival goers.

Dubbed the 'biggest and best lineup ever', stars such as Diana Ross, and Lewis Capaldi are also set to grace the stage, from Tuesday 28 July to Sunday 10 July.

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