By Fraser Dahdouh

STROUD'S Fringe Festival is back this month for its 21st anniversary and this year's event looks set to be the biggest yet.

With line-ups announced for events at St Lawrence’s Church to the Block Party, and the Canal Stage to Cornhill Square, this year Fringe will be bigger than ever.

The festival begins on Friday, August 25 and runs through to the Sunday, August 27, with a line-up packed with music, comedy, art and street performances, as well as an abundance of food and drink available at the Fringe’s Food Street.

This year, an option for those visiting Stroud from further afield is to camp over the weekend at the Stratford Park glamping site, near the festival’s annual Colourscape installation.

The three main stages – Bank Gardens, Cornhill market square and the Canal Stage – have announced many of the acts set to perform, and there has been something of a makeover for each one for this year's festival.

Bank gardens will become the Fringe’s main music stage, where you will find headline acts such as Emily Barker, the Lancastrians Lowes and the Low Chimes – and a showcase of talent from Stroud and the rest of the UK.

Bank Gardens is also the home of the flag-making workshop for the annual Fringe parade on the Sunday afternoon, as well as the pop-up bookshop and magazine-making workshop Burning House Books.

The Canal stage will become the ‘village green’ with a ‘bandstand’ styled stage, where an assortment of folk and alternative music will thunder on through the weekend and the area will also host a fundraising raft race along the canal.

The Cornhill farmers market square will take its usual place as the comedy stage for the Friday night, giving way to reggae and world music for the remaining two nights, and music workshops throughout the daytime.

Making a comeback for the third year, after two very successful years, is the Block Party stage in the Fawkes Place car-park.

This year, the headliners include Dynamite MC and DJ Format as well as The Nextmen – bringing a mix of hip hop, dancehall and drum’n’bass.

A debutant appearance of ‘Fringe Lates’ will take place in the Lansdown Hall, where those of us with nocturnal inclinations can enjoy some of the more bohemian fundraisers of the weekend – a quiz night hosted by Johnny Byford, a ‘Disco Sucks’ party on the Saturday where you can enjoy disco, funk and house music into the small hours, finishing on the Sunday with Stroud Film Festivals ‘secret cinema’ night.

Keep your eye on the SNJ website as more information is released on performers, as the countdown to Stroud Fringe 2017 begins.