JAMES Blunt and Madness are among the artists performing at this year's Henley Festival.

Henley Festival has announced it will return for 2021 to its spectacular setting on the riverbank in Henley-on-Thames with its full black-tie splendour.

They will be moving their traditional dates to Wednesday, September 15, to Sunday, September 19, 2021, and will be bringing to the mix a super-charged brand new pop-up party that will take place from July 8-10 ahead of the main festival.

Established 38 years ago as a classical music charity event, Henley Festival is the UK’s only black-tie festival – glamour personified – and continues to run as a non-profit organisation, supporting charitable projects at both a national and local level.

Seminal British pop band Madness will open Henley festival 2021 on Wednesday night.

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One of the top 20 selling UK groups of all time, Madness have seven top ten albums, 22 top 20 hits and over six million album sales to their name. Having celebrated 40 years in the music industry in 2019, Madness will perform much loved classics including ‘House of Fun’, ‘Baggy Trousers’ and ‘It Must Be Love’ alongside new songs from their first album in five years ‘The Bullingdon Boys.’

On Thursday night, Henley Festival is delighted to welcome the multi-platinum selling singer-songwriter James Blunt to headline the Floating Stage.

A household name across the UK and beyond, Blunt rose to fame in 2004 with the release of his debut album Back to Bedlam, achieving worldwide acclaim with the hit singles ‘You're Beautiful’ and ‘Goodbye My Lover’.

Other acts performing include Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Kathy Sledge from Sister Sledge.

The comedy line up will include the likes of Al Murray, Milton Jones, Shappi Khorsandi and Rory Bremner.

One of Britain’s favourite comedians, Al Murray’s hard-edged social and political satire is sure to have the audience in fits of laughter.

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In terms of food, Michelin starred chef Angela Hartnett MBE will be returning to Henley Festival 2021 to run Europe’s biggest field restaurant, creating a bespoke menu exclusively for Henley, at the Riverside Restaurant.

A festival for food lovers, Henley caters for all tastes offering a huge number of restaurants and pop ups from street food to fine dining. Restaurant’s popping up at the festival will include Garden Bistro by Jimmy Garcia, Green Box, Oink, BBQ Club, Hotel Chocolat, Jessecco Prosecco, Black Cab Coffee Company and many more.

Henley Festival is topped off each night by an overhead firework display.

2021’s fireworks display will be designed by Titanium Fireworks, the team who have put on some of the UK’s biggest firework shows in the last decade including the 2012 London Olympics, the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, the London New Year’s Eve Fireworks display and Hogmany in Edinburgh, as well as pyrotechnics for some of the biggest names in music including Adele, Will Smith, Coldplay and Take That.