THE Fairford Festival of Fiction returns this year with a cracking line-up that includes Sherlock and The League of Gentleman star Mark Gatiss, crime writer Sarah Hilary, poet Chrissie Williams and children's author Ross Montgomery.

The Festival at Fairford Cricket Club, on Saturday, June 2 and Sunday, June 3, will open with the pupils from Fairford Primary School reading their work on Saturday, followed by Ross Montgomery, whose debut Alex, the Dog and the Unopenable Door was a Costa Children’s Book of the Year nominee, and selected as one of the Sunday Times’ Top 100 Modern Children’s Classics.

Co-founder and director of the annual Free Verse Poetry Book Fair, Chrissy Williams, will be next to entertain audiences, followed by crime writer Sarah Hilary, whose thriller novel Someone Else’s Skin won the 2015 Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year.

TV writer Matthew Graham, who still has family in Fairford, will take to the stage to speak about his career that has spanned writing for Eastenders, This Life, Hustle and Doctor Who.

He’s now based in Hollywood, and works mainly for US television.

Star and writer of The League of Gentlemen, co-creator and star of Sherlock, novelist and screenwriter of Doctor Who, and actor in everything from Game of Thrones to Gunpowder, Mark Gatiss, will close proceedings on Saturday and will no doubt be a huge attraction at the Festival.

Sunday afternoon will see Sarah McIntyre, children’s author and illustrator, return to the Festival once again for a main stage appearance with music, live drawing and audience participation.

  •  Visit eventbrite.com/e/fairford-festival-of-fiction-2 for tickets.