WOMAD festival is about so much more than music and its World of Words is a unique space bursting with poetry, comedy, authors, debates and much more to make festival goers think and laugh.

With the festival at Charlton Park, Malmesbury, a few months away organisers have announced the programme for this year's World of Words, and there is plenty to spark interest across the generations.

Returning to the Wiltshire countryside is funny, weird and wonderful Hip Yak Poetry Shack.

Hosted by Liv Torc, Jonny Fluffypunk and Chris Remond, this year’s collection of poets and artists will have audiences laughing, crying and questioning life, the universe and everything as they take in their hilarious, ridiculous and often moving words.

The 2016 line-up includes official poet for the London Olympics Lemn Sissay MBE, satirical wordsmith Murray Lachlan Young who will be entertaining festival-goers with his views on everything from politics to the space-time continuum with the odd mildly erotic folk ballad thrown in, and Radio 4 regular Kate Fox, who will be adding her hilarious stand up poetry and comedy to the mix.

And there’s plenty more to spark interest across the World of Words program, with debates, workshops and discussions galore across the weekend.

Squeeze’s Chris Difford will be giving a lyrics-writing masterclass and there will be a ‘How to Find Your Happy’ forum headed by Sallyann Keizer of Happinesshub.com.

Stand-up comedian James Campbell will front a conversation entitled ‘Funny is a Serious Business’.

In addition to this, the program boasts a topical What The Papers Say panel hosted by ITV reporter Rupert Evelyn and featuring The One Show’s naturalist Mike Dilger and a children’s and young adult authors panel discussion on the importance of a world view in young people’s literature, headed by children’s author Wendy Meddour.

The University of Sussex’s School of Global Studies is returning to WOMAD 2016 to curate ‘Global Voices’, an eclectic mix of talk circles, live performances from guest lecturers and talks and debates on a diverse range of subjects, touching on everything from politics and anthropology to poetry and song from all over the world.

Highlights include a weekend-long residency by cult U.S. magazine FOUND fronted by Senior Editor Sarah Locke, who will be running two interactive shows based on the publication’s unique philosophy, the idea that the random traces we leave on the world – objects of text such as angry notes, love letters, shopping lists – give us a real insight into people’s lives.

Sarah will be accompanied by singer-songwriter Mike Doughty, formerly lead singer of alternative 90’s indie combo Soul Coughing.

Joining them as part of the Global Voices line-up are author and Grammy nominated producer Ian Brennan, who will be shining some light on where things have gone wrong with popular music, as discussed in his new book ‘How Music Dies (or Lives)’ and lawyer Arlette Piercy looking at the regulatory powers bill on internet snooping with Justice and Don’t-Spy-On-Us.

Also appearing at the Global Voices tent will be indigenous singer songwriter Suming Rupi, who will be bringing his sonorous folk chants and tribal rhythms and beats to WOMAD.

Elsewhere at WOMAD, at the Ecotricity stage Jon Snow will host discussions on how to achieve a Green Britain, one the Young Green Briton Chat, with teens aged 11-16 presenting their ideas on energy, transport and food and the the other with a panel including Ecotricity founder, Dale Vince.

And lastly the WOMAD Book Club, bringing the cosy living room book club atmosphere to the green fields of Wiltshire, introducing festival-goers to fantastic new reads whilst giving them the opportunity to meet their authors and engage with them at the Q&A sessions held over the weekend.

  • WOMAD is at Charlton Park, Malmesbury from July 28-31. For a full line-up of artists and events and details of how to get tickets go to womad.co.uk