Natasha Hodgson

This is the 10th year of the BBC's Poetry and Performance Festival, celebrating the spoken word in all its forms.

And joining me here on stage are Donna Ashworth, the UK's best-selling living poet, two of the creators of the all-conquering musical Operation Mincemeat, Natasha Hodgson and David Cumming, who will be performing a song from the show.

Theatre director Anthony Almeida is here to tell us why he has set Othello in the era of the Falklands War.

and the T.S. Eliot Prize-winning poet Joelle Taylor on The Lost World of the Lesbian Bar.

but few could have imagined the success of Operation Mincemeat, the musical about a mission to mislead the Nazis over the Allies' invasion plans.

The musical is a hit in London's West End, as well as on Broadway, and is about to tour the world, including China and Mexico.

It was created by a theatre troupe formed as students called Spit Lip, and two of them are with me now, Natasha Hodgson and David Cumming, and they'll be performing for us very shortly.

Welcome to you both.