Hay Festival 2018

WritersMosaic director Colin Grant hosts this Salon reflecting on the woefully under-reported cultural impact of Black people who have lived outside of London. The metropolitan bias has cast other British towns and cities and their inhabitants, no matter their alleged race or class, in its shadow. Lanre Bakare’s We Were There challenges that dominance by incorporating a vastly broader range of Black Britons into the fabric of our national story.

Grant (from Luton) speaks to Bradford-born author Lanre Bakare, singer and writer Pauline Black from Coventry powerhouse The Selecter, Malika Booker, founder of the poetry collective Malika’s Kitchen based in Leeds, and Nottingham-based singer and musician Daudi Matsiko. Together they illuminate the radical groups of artists and pioneering thinkers who have remained largely unknown or at least unheralded in London.

A chance to see an unprecedented collaboration between BBC Radio 3’s award-winning Delia Stevens and three-time BBC Radio 2 Folk Musician of the Year nominee Will Pound, as they follow the creative evolution of the classical composers inspired by folk.

The pair combine the traditional instruments of Pound’s melodeon and harmonica with the dizzying array of Stevens’ percussion, and then let their imaginations run riot while paying homage to their respective musical roots.

Stevens’ work ranges from reimagining Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with percussion for Sky Arts, presenting her own BBC Radio 3 series Music and Machines and performing Avner Dorman’s prolific 360° percussion concerto at Prague’s ‘Last Night of the Proms’ with the Beethoven Academy Orchestra.

Pound has created touring projects questioning Brexit, featuring a traditional tune from every EU state, and has explored the history of Morris Dance with Martin Simpson and storyteller Debs Newbold in ‘Through the Seasons’.

Expect roaring swing, sassy vocals, fabulous funk and delicious Latin flavours from one of the UK’s finest big bands, teeming with first-call players and appearing under the musical directorship of award-winning band leader Pete Long. The band’s exciting brew of virtuoso ensemble playing with killer solo contributions from across all sections has been delighting jazz fans right across the board.

Their shows have made national press for their ability to change style and genre while maintaining that big band power. Settle in for an evening of first-class arrangements of classic hits from the likes of Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, Stan Kenton, the Rat Pack and Benny Goodman!

British-Sikh comedian Daman Bamrah hosts a night of comedy with Desiree Burch and Huge Davies. Bamrah is a rapidly emerging comedian known for his topical writing, acute observations and imaginative storytelling.

Desiree Burch is an NY-to-London transplant. She quickly and firmly established herself as one of the UK’s breakout comic stars, winning the 2015 Funny Women Award. Host and voice of Netflix’s smash reality hit Too Hot Too Handle, she also recently hosted BBC2’s Live at the Apollo. Her TV credits include the BBC’s Have I Got News For You and C4’s Taskmaster.

Huge Davies combines a confident on-stage presence with dark humour, surreal material and his one-of-kind customised keyboard. His first show, The Carpark, received an Edinburgh Comedy Award Nomination for Best Newcomer, and on transferring to the Soho Theatre was featured as Time Out’s No.1 comedy show to see. His sitcom The Artists is on Channel 4.

Jump up and get down with the turntable master at our Friday night party! DJ legend Vertigo’s seamless mixes create an irresistible energy on the dance floor. Influenced by house, acid house and rave culture, his own unique sound mixes infectious basslines, deep beats and soulful melodies. His sets are a tribute to the golden era of house music, blending classic tracks with fresh takes on the genre. Grab a drink and lose yourself in the original rave ethos of unity, freedom and joy.

Dav focuses on mastering arm balances in this class, diving deep into the fundamentals of arm balance postures, and breaking them down step-by-step to help you build strength, stability and confidence. Whether you’re a beginner or intermediate practitioner, he’ll guide you through key arm balances such as Crow, Bakasana and Side Plank, offering accessible variations and progressions for all levels. You’ll learn how to engage your core, activate the right muscle groups and improve your alignment for safe and effective practice. He’ll also focus on overcoming the mental barriers that often accompany arm balances, like fear of falling or self-doubt.

By the end of this class, you’ll not only feel stronger and more stable, you’ll also develop the confidence to approach arm balances with a sense of empowerment and clarity. Whether you’re looking to master your first crow pose or refine your technique, Dav will provide the guidance and support to help you move through fear and discover your potential on the mat.

Beginners and experienced students are most welcome. Yoga mats are provided.

Please contact Clare Fry at hello@larchwoodstudio.com with any questions relating to these classes. As capacity is limited, we recommend booking in advance to avoid disappointment.

Whether you’re new to sound baths or a seasoned wellness enthusiast, this transformative experience is perfect if you’re seeking to reduce stress, enhance focus and nurture well-being. Using high-quality crystal bowls, each tuned to vibrational frequencies that align with your Chakra energy centres, the sound bath promotes relaxation, improved intuition, creativity and rejuvenation. As you lie comfortably, you are guided into a Somatic meditation followed by the healing resonance of the crystal singing bowls, restoring balance, peace and harmony to your body, mind, spirit.

No prior experience is necessary. Bring a yoga mat and blanket, and get cosy. Not suitable for people with Sound Epilepsy, in the first trimester of pregnancy, with metal implants or severe mental illness.

Former Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt considers Britain’s role in the world in the century ahead. He tells stories from his time as Foreign Secretary, asking if Britain is a minor player, marginalised by our departure from the EU, or if there’s a bigger role for us to play in an international order that is rapidly changing.

The MP also looks at whether it’s time to focus on more narrow interests, or to defend the huge progress of freedom and democracy we have seen over the last century. Hunt was elected Conservative MP for South West Surrey in 2005. He served in a number of roles during the recent Conservative government, including Health Secretary and Chancellor.

Start the day at Hay Festival with headline guests chaired by editors from The Independent reviewing the news, discussing the headlines and issues of the day, and revealing what’s breaking and trending online. A fascinating look at what’s tickling the nation’s fancy – and driving it to splenetic fury. Bring your coffee!

Among today’s guests are ITV’s deputy political editor Anushka Asthana, author of Taken As Red: How Labour Won Big and the Tories Crashed the Party, and Lyse Doucet, the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent and Senior Presenter.

What is a planet? And what makes Earth so special? Take a new look at the world around you with the space scientist and broadcaster. She explains that the story of Earth is best understood as part of its larger family, where each planet becomes a character with a story of its own to tell, from Jupiter, the King of the Solar System, to ice oddity Uranus and outlier planet-but-not-a-planet Pluto.

Dame Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock has worked in both industrial and academic environments. As a broadcaster and author she works to encourage underrepresented communities to enter STEM and to make science more accessible to young girls, literally encouraging them to ‘reach for the stars’. Her latest book The Story of the Solar System: A Visual Journey brings the space family to life.

A celebration of Gabriel García Márquez’s iconic novel One Hundred Years of Solitude. The Colombian novelist was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982.

Translator Daniel Hahn discusses the book, its recent screen adaptation and all things in between with New Yorker staff writer Jon Lee Anderson, who has reported extensively from Latin America and is a board member of the Gabriel García Márquez Foundation, and Colombian writer and journalist Silvana Paternostro, author of Solitude & Company, a book about Márquez as seen by the people who knew him best.

Come and listen to this year’s celebrated Hay Festival Writers at Work. This thrilling 2025 group of ten Welsh writers will share new fiction and poetry, in English and Cymraeg.

Guides from the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park lead a walk through the beautiful surrounds of Hay-on-Wye. Two of the Park’s ecologists introduce wayfarers to some of the captivating local flora and fauna.

Hay-on-Wye is located within 520 square miles of beautiful landscape that makes up the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park. The National Park is driving change to bring about a sustainable future, meeting our needs within planetary boundaries. Their Hay Festival series of walks take you into the town’s local environment while offering the opportunity to learn more about the Park’s work and its treasured landscape.

Children’s writer Onjali Q Raúf celebrates a hidden army of young carers in this event, as she shares her Wales-set novel The Letter with the Golden Stamp.

The book introduces Audrey, who lives in Swansea and is keeping a big secret: she’s the sole carer for her increasingly sick mother, as well as for her two younger siblings. Oh, and she’s also a seasoned thief…

When a new neighbour threatens Audrey’s world, she must go on an adventure to save her family.

The Letter with the Golden Stamp delves into the fears and hopes of young carers everywhere, and looks at the invisible sources of kindness knocking on all our doors.

Raúf gives young attendees to this event an insight into the challenges faced by carers, explains her storytelling process, and provides an uplifting look at how we can all be there for each other.

Enjoy this twenty-minute open air performance between events. Got 2 Sing Choir perform uplifting songs from top of the charts to golden oldies, with plenty of fun and laughter.

On the last day of April 1980, six heavily armed gunmen burst into the Iranian embassy in London, taking 26 hostages. A tense six-day siege ensued, and millions gathered around screens to witness the longest news flash in British television history, in which police negotiators and psychiatrists sought a bloodless end to the standoff, while the SAS – previously an organisation shrouded in secrecy – laid plans for a daring rescue mission: Operation Nimrod.

Historian Ben Macintyre draws on unpublished source material, exclusive interviews with the SAS and testimony from witnesses including hostages to tell the drama-filled story of the Iranian embassy siege.

Macintyre’s books include Colditz and Agent Sonya. Several have been made into films and television series, including Operation Mincemeat, A Spy Among Friends and SAS: Rogue Heroes.

Travel writer Horatio Clare and investigative journalist Nicola Kelly speak about Britain’s intentionally hostile immigration system and the many people working to counteract it, with author and environmental campaigner Ben Rawlence. This event will leave you with new perspectives on one of the most urgent issues of our time.

In Clare’s We Came by Sea, he tells of the volunteers who help thousands of refugees in Calais, of the lifeboat crews rescuing those at sea and “an unrecognised, uncelebrated, all but unknown Britain” which is giving its all to help the vulnerable and desperate.

Kelly, formerly a Home Office insider, gives a nuanced insight into the small boats crisis in Anywhere But Here, from the under-resourced coastguards who have to oversee search and rescue operations to the decision-makers hired from McDonald’s and Aldi to conduct ‘life and death’ asylum interviews.

Son of John le Carré and acclaimed novelist Nick Harkaway leads us into an extraordinary, thrilling return to the world of the spymaster. Karla’s Choice is set in the missing decade between two iconic George Smiley novels, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

It’s spring 1963 and George Smiley has left the Circus. Among the wreckage of the West’s spy war with the Soviets, he has eyes only on a more peaceful life. But Control has other plans. Smiley reluctantly agrees to one last task – but soon finds himself entangled in a perilous mystery…

Following last year’s sell-out scratch choir session, Juliet Russell returns to create a beautiful sound with 200 strangers. She has led choirs for Paloma Faith, Alt-J, Greenpeace, the Olympic Torch project, Channel 4 and Glastonbury. As a singer, music creative and vocal coach on The Voice and Netflix new flagship music show Building the Band, Juliet will guide you to use your voice in a whole new way.

No experience is needed. This session is for singers, secret singers and ‘I’ve never sung in my lifers’. Uplifting, engaging and a perfect way to start your day.

Step into the open air and let the rhythm of nature fuel your creativity in Rhythms of the Wild, an electrifying fusion of poetry, rap and the great outdoors. Led by Casey Bailey – acclaimed poet, spoken word artist, rapper and educator from Birmingham – this immersive experience invites you to explore the deep connection between rhythm, storytelling and the natural world.

Experiment with form, flow and feeling – as you move through scenic landscapes, you’ll engage in dynamic writing exercises that merge the energy of rap with the introspection of poetry. Let the wind set your tempo, the rustling leaves inspire your metaphors and the sounds of nature shape your verses.

Bailey will share insights on how environment influences rhythm and lyricism, demonstrating how poetry and rap can be powerful tools for self-expression. The experience culminates in a captivating live performance, where Bailey’s words will bring the natural world to life through rhyme and rhythm.

Join award-winning children’s novelist Kiran Millwood Hargrave (The Girl of Ink & Stars, Julia and the Shark) as she celebrates the next book in her unmissable Geomancer trilogy, which began with In the Shadow of the Wolf Queen.

Kiran takes us on a journey through her creativity, to discover the real woodlands and earth magic that lie at the heart of her stories. You’ll marvel at Celtic rainforests, talking root systems, ambitious arctic foxes and ancient Greenland sharks. And you’ll leave feeling inspired by the world around you and ready to create your own tales.

Please bring your own notebook and pen to this event.

Join international storyteller Jan Blake, djembe player Mohamed Gueye and musicians from the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra for an interactive performance of Ananse and the Monkeys.

Ananse needs some money to buy food, so makes some hats to sell, but on his way to the market some monkeys steal them! Can Ananse outwit the monkeys to get his precious hats back?

Award-winning author, playwright and screenwriter Alex Wheatle kicks off this event with an introduction to his gripping new book, a powerful tale of family, friendship and football. He’ll discuss his work with writer Ashley Hickson-Lovence, from his life experiences and how they have shaped his writing, to his bestselling Crongton books, soon to appear as a new drama series on BBC iPlayer.

In The Girl With the Red Boots, aspiring footballer Kadeen’s beloved older brother is tragically killed and she identifies the shooter – a dangerous crime lord. Sent away from Jamaica to stay with her strict Aunt Mel in London, Kadeen must lie low. Can she pursue her love of football without attracting the crime lord’s attention?

Enjoy this twenty-minute open air performance between events. Got 2 Sing Choir perform uplifting songs from top of the charts to golden oldies, with plenty of fun and laughter.

Infamous Edwardian wife-murderer Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen was brought to justice by an unlikely group of people: music hall women. Historian Hallie Rubenhold gives voice to this group, who were never properly heard at the time.

On 1 February 1910, the vivacious music hall performer Belle Elmore suddenly vanished from her London home, causing alarm among her circle of female friends, the entertainers of the Music Hall Ladies’ Guild, who demanded an immediate investigation. What came to light was a gruesome secret, and the eventual conviction and hanging of Dr Crippen, a homoeopath and ear and eye specialist, for the murder.

The Poet Laureate makes a luminous tribute to the natural world, presenting his new collection inspired by the diversity of habitats found at Cornwall’s Lost Gardens of Heligan.

The Gardens are an ambitious restoration project where history and mystery combine. Armitage evokes the reawakened landscape with its woods, meadows and ‘jungle’, offering a bustling, fertile realm for all sorts of creatures to inhabit.

Using elements of riddle and folklore, he animates a series of dwellings: the ‘twig-and-leaf crow’s-nest squat’ of a squirrel’s drey, a beaver lodge’s ‘spillikin stave church’ and a hive’s ‘reactor core’. He blurs the distinctions between human and animal, natural and cultivated, emphasising commonality, while also warning of the fragility of these spaces and their dwellers.

The next ten years will see an unprecedented transfer in wealth from the so-called ‘baby boomer’ generation to the young. Never before will so much money be shifted so suddenly from one generation to the next, and never before has the next generation felt so differently about the future of the planet and of capitalism.

In this look at intergenerational attitudes to wealth, global investment banker, philanthropist and thought leader Ken Costa examines how Generation Z’s focus on ethics, climate change and purpose will change capitalism forever, and what that means for the future of the world.

Costa is a supporter of investment in the next generation, and chairs Glorify, a meditation app.

Our well-being as humans is directly connected to nature on our planet, and the Amazon Rainforest is of vital importance globally. Yet the dangers posed to it are myriad. Our panellists, all with an intimate connection to the rainforest, talk to investigative reporter Jon Lee Anderson about attempts to save the Amazon from illegal loggers and how indigenous knowledge is key to protecting the area.

They also look at the work of late journalist Dom Phillips, killed in 2022 alongside Brazilian Bruno Pereira, an expert on indigenous peoples of Brazil, while researching a book on the Amazon. Phillips’ wife Alessandra Sampaio launched the Dom Phillips Institute in his memory. The organisation aims to promote and share knowledge of the forest and its peoples.

Eliane Brum and Jonathan Watts live in Altamira in the Amazon Rainforest. Brum is a writer, journalist and documentary filmmaker, whose latest book Banzeiro Òkòtó investigates the destruction of the Amazon by the construction of one of the largest dams in the world. Watts is global environment editor for the Guardian and founder of the Rainforest Journalism Fund. He is leading a team of writers to finish the book Phillips was working on when he was murdered.

Join Phoebe Smith, Welsh author and guide with Inntravel (specialists in self-guided walking, cycling and rail holidays), to walk parts of the ancient ways around Hay-on-Wye, from the well-known Offa’s Dyke to lesser known cart tracks and paths. Smith’s Wayfarer: Love, Loss and Life on Britain’s Pilgrim Paths has been shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Travel Book of the Year 2025. Explore with her and discuss how nature and place can be powerful forces for healing, understanding and discovering selfhood.

BAFTA award-winning actor, writer, producer and director Sharon Horgan discusses her outstanding creative work with TV executive and new Hay Festival Chair Jay Hunt.

A writer with a remarkable ability to craft complex, compelling and messy characters within worlds of hilarity and intrigue, Horgan is well known for her sitcom Catastrophe and BBC show Pulling, winner of two British Comedy Awards. Black comedy series Bad Sisters, which Horgan co-wrote, produced and starred in for Apple TV+, has received high critical acclaim, winning Best Drama at the 2023 Television BAFTAS.

Horgan shares a look at her source material, from the Belgian TV series Clan on which Bad Sisters was based, to the true crime literature she loves to read. Considering how story bends and changes in the transfer across different media, she describes what gives a book great potential for adaptation. Her production company is currently co-producing adaptations of two New York Times bestsellers, I’m Glad My Mom Died for Apple and Vladimir for Netflix.

Join international storyteller Jan Blake, djembe player Mohamed Gueye and musicians from the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra for an interactive performance of Ananse and the Monkeys.

Ananse needs some money to buy food, so makes some hats to sell, but on his way to the market some monkeys steal them! Can Ananse outwit the monkeys to get his precious hats back?