Hay Festival 2023

Join the author of The Rachel Incident and All Our Hidden Gifts, Caroline O’Donoghue, to hear about her new fantasy romance with a sci-fi twist, Skipshock. When Margo boards a train to her new school, she could never have expected a time slip into the chill of an alien winter. Margo and Moon were on two different trains, in two different worlds. They never should have met – but they did. And now they are running out of time. Will Margo manage to find a way home, or will she choose to stay in a world where she may have found the only person with whom she would choose to spend eternity?

Caroline’s The Rachel Incident is being adapted for television by Universal Studios, and her hit podcast Sentimental Garbage has had over 9 million downloads worldwide.

Please bring your own notebook and pen to this event.

Enjoy this twenty-minute open air performance between events. Love To Sing Choir was created in January 2024. Their first public performance saw them win Gold at the Herefordshire Performing Arts Festival, only six weeks after they formed! The choir has performed at many events including Ludlow Fringe Festival and Applefest in Hereford, and in the musical Make Good: The Post Office Scandal.

Celebrating the 80th anniversary of VE Day, historians James Holland (Normandy ’44) and Al Murray (Command) tell the unflinching story of the eight surrenders – from the Italian Alps to northern Germany, London, New York, Washington and Tokyo – that brought victory to the Allies and ended the Second World War.

What took place during the negotiations of those surrenders and the terms that were agreed there would determine the directions that participating countries would take in the years that followed, and ultimately decide the shape of our world today.

Holland and Murray together host the popular World War II podcast We Have Ways of Making You Talk. Murray is also known as his comic alter ego, The Pub Landlord.

OCD is often used as a shorthand for tidiness or as the punchline of a joke, but obsessive compulsive disorder is one of society’s most misunderstood conditions. Actor Tuppence Middleton has lived with OCD since the age of 11, struggling with obsessive thoughts and compulsions which she visualises as scorpions inhabiting her mind.

In this candid event, Middleton will talk about her diagnosis, how OCD manifests in her life, and discuss her memoir Scorpions, a visceral and uncompromising look at living with OCD. Middleton works in film, television and theatre; she starred in Netflix’s Sense8 and had roles in The Imitation Game and Shadowplay.

From school onwards, we accept there is a separation between art and mathematics. But what if we’re wrong? Marcus du Sautoy argues that maths and art may not be polar opposites after all, and that their complementary relationship spans a vast historical and geographic landscape, from the earliest stone circles to Mozart’s obsession with numbers and the radically modern architecture of Zaha Hadid.

Du Sautoy has been named by the Independent on Sunday as one of the UK’s leading scientists. In 2008 he was appointed to Oxford University’s Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science, a post previously held by Richard Dawkins.

Waterstones Children’s Laureate Frank Cottrell-Boyce and child psychologist and neuroscientist Professor Sam Wass discuss the importance to childhood development of reading and access to stories. They consider the urgent need to get reading as a right for all, not just the few.

When he was crowned Laureate in 2024, Cottrell-Boyce pledged to use his role to advocate for national provision so that every child – from their earliest years – has access to books, reading and the transformative ways in which they improve long-term life chances.

Professor Wass runs the Institute for the Science of Early Years (ISEY) at the University of East London. A major focus of research at the Institute is exploring how diverse early living environments influence early attention, learning and stress.

Céline Sciamma (Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Girlhood)’s film is a sublime modern fairytale about the quiet wonder of mother-daughter relationships. A favourite of the 2021 Berlin Film Festival, this beautifully understated drama returns the director to her preoccupation with coming-of-age stories to masterful effect.

The film tells the story of eight-year-old Nelly’s fantastical journey after the death of her beloved grandmother. While helping her mother clear out her childhood home, Nelly begins to explore the surrounding woodland and encounters a strangely familiar girl her own age. Instantly forming a connection with this mysterious new friend, Nelly embarks on a formative flight of fancy that encourages her to come to terms with this newfound loss.

Featuring exceptional central performances from real-life twins Joséphine and Gabrielle Sanz, Sciamma’s warm and gently profound film mixes the intimate with the fantastical with her characteristically delicate touch, weaved together into a tale of childhood, memory and loss that will resonate with audiences young and old.

“Enchanting… A gentle drama about daughterhood” – Little White Lies

Award-winning historian and broadcaster Professor David Olusoga and Lecturer in Education Dr Yinka Olusoga introduce their book Black History for Every Day of the Year. This unique and vital celebration of Black history travels across the world from ancient times to the modern day.

Meet well-known figures and unsung heroes, learn about famous and lesser-known key cultural moments in history, sport, science, activism, music and more. Hear stories of hope, connection and creativity, alongside tales of racism, resistance and celebration – from the nineteenth century anti-slavery movement to World Wars I and II, to the Harlem Renaissance, Stormzy, Simone Biles and beyond. With an accessible story for every day of the year, here is a rich history that is relevant to us all.

What are words? They’re the beginning of our stories: portals to treasured memories, to the strange sayings that seem to be unique to our own families and the beloved people that say them to us. So, what was your gran’s favourite word for a time-waster? How did your dad answer the question ‘What’s the time?’ And just how many responses are there to the daily query ‘What’s for dinner?’

Even better, how do these words change as they travel across our regions? Join Rosen for a tour of the British Isles and all its vernacular idiosyncrasies, through his ‘Almanac’ of the weird and wonderful words we use. He reflects on the joys of English, for anyone who loves language – whether following its rules or breaking them.

When was the last time you really stayed away from your phone? Or picked it up just to do the one task you intended, and didn’t fall into scrolling through your apps for hours? There is little doubt that we’re addicted to our smartphones, but interacting with the online world is an essential component of modern life, so it’s difficult to work out how to step away and find a balance.

In this offline session Dr Kaitlyn Regehr discusses her book Smartphone Nation: Why We’re All Addicted to Screens and What We Can Do About It, and shows how to keep the advantages and joy of the internet while also identifying the dangers. Look out for tips on how to withdraw when we’re being over-reliant on our devices! Regehr is an associate professor at University College London.

Sir Anthony Seldon is a leading political and social commentator, well-known for his biographies of UK prime ministers. Here he takes a look at two of the most turbulent, drawing on exclusive interviews to give the definitive accounts of Johnson’s and Truss’s premierships.

After his dramatic rise to power amid the Brexit deadlock, Johnson presided over the most turbulent period of British history in living memory. From Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic to the crisis in Afghanistan, the outbreak of war in Ukraine and the Partygate scandal, his government ultimately unravelled after just three years.

But in the space of just 49 days Liz Truss challenged him for the badge of most disastrous premiership, as she attempted to remould the economy, triggered a collapse in the value of Sterling and was forced on a series of embarrassing U-turns.

Seldon is founder of the Museum of the Prime Minister.

Comic artist Dix launches his first solo graphic novel, The Idris File, a historical thriller that reads like The Banshees of Inisherin meets Raiders of the Lost Ark. A young teenager discovers that his quiet seaside Welsh village harbours Nazi horrors beneath its dreary, overcast skies.

Dix and actor Jim Broadbent collaborated on the acclaimed graphic novel Dull Margaret. They have reunited for ‘Wrong’, an exhibition of sculpture and painting at The Table, a gallery in Hay-on-Wye. Dix’s paintings on original 1970s wallpaper capture his comedic half-memories and influences from that time, coupled with often disagreeable verse. Jim’s creations are influenced by his life in film and stage. Odd characters challenge the viewer to make sense of their peculiar predicaments in surreal theatrical dioramas.

Join the pair in this event as they discuss their curious art and influences with writer and filmmaker Pete Jones.

We’re entering a new era – and our old narratives around global affairs, politics, technology and the environment no longer capture the complexity of today’s realities. We urgently need positive new stories to inspire collective action and decision-making.

Join BSR (Business for Social Responsibility)’s Sustainable Futures Lab in this highly interactive and creative workshop, to explore new opportunities presented by ‘shocks’ across different domains, from wars to AI to climate upheavals, and weave these into positive new narratives around innovation, collaboration and a reimagined future.

The session will be hosted by Christine Diamente, who leads BSR’s Business Transformation team, Jacob Park, who leads BSR’s Sustainable Futures Lab, Charlene Collison, who leads BSR’s Collaborations, and Margot Brent, who leads BSR’s strategy practice.

Join our celebrated pizzaioli for an entertaining, hands-on workshop that will teach you everything that you knead to know about how to make pizzas. Since nothing complements pizza quite like a perfect glass of wine, let us pair and enjoy Italian wine together with your pizza creations.

This 90-minute session includes snacks, a 12” pizza of your own creation and complementary wine throughout. Dairy-free and gluten-free options available.

What does the return of Trump to the US presidency mean for Europe? For a start, it’s bolstered his far-right allies, like Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, while a new era of American protectionism – including the possibility of tariffs – threatens an already divided Britain and Europe. But it’s not just the economy that will be affected by Trump’s second term; there will also be an impact on Europe’s security and its efforts to combat climate change.

To discuss how Europe might respond, Misha Glenny, Rector of the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) in Vienna, is joined by: historian Anne Applebaum (Autocracy, Inc), who has written extensively about the history of Communism and the development of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe; Alastair Campbell, a campaigner and strategist best known for his role as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s director of communications and strategy; and Edi Rama, the 33rd and incumbent prime minister of Albania and chairman of the Socialist Party of Albania.

Surviving in the wilderness has long been associated with men, yet many remarkable women also choose to live and work in wild and challenging landscapes. Presenter and author Philippa Forrester (Wild Woman) and journalism lecturer Sarah Lonsdale (Wildly Different) share their stories of women who choose to live wildly.

Forrester considers the grit and determination required for women to maintain connections to wildlife, and highlights female conservation heroes and other extraordinary women working in nature. Lonsdale tells the globe-trotting tales of five women who fought for the right to work in, enjoy and help to save the wild places of the Earth. In conversation with Sarah Lamptey, presenter, writer, DJ, social activist and founder of Showerbox, which brings free showers to enhance the lives of those facing homelessness in London, they ask: how do women claim their place in the remote and lovely parts of our planet?

What makes people believe in conspiracy theories? Why have they taken over our political sphere? And how do we counter them before it’s too late? Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey, co-authors of Conspiracy Theory, pull back the curtain on conspiracy theories, from the bizarre to the sinister, and look at how conspiracism has become a booming industry, a political strategy and a pseudo-religion, and something that’s a threat to the foundations of liberal democracy.

Dunt spent many years working in Westminster as editor of Politics.co.uk. He is a columnist for The i newspaper, and a host on the Oh God What Now and Origin Story podcasts. Lynskey has written several books, including the just-released Everything Must Go, an exploration of our fantasies of the end of the world.

One in five people will have an affair in their lifetimes – but the reasons behind the affairs might not be what you think. Psychotherapist Juliet Rosenfeld shares the secrets, lies and motivations behind real affairs, and considers the psychological and childhood roots that may help explain why an affair happens.

Rosenfeld’s new book looks without judgement at five different true stories of people who had affairs, from a man who left his wife in the delivery suite to visit his young mistress to the psychologist who put attraction to a patient above career ethics. A psychoanalytic psychotherapist and author, Rosenfeld has a special interest in couples and the difficulties they encounter in long term relationships. She talks to award-winning investigative journalist, documentary maker and presenter Catrin Nye.

Irish author Roisín O’Donnell was an Observer Best Debut Novelist of 2025. She speaks to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Mexican author of Liliana’s Invincible Summer, Cristina Rivera Garza, about her urgent first novel Nesting.

Come and hear the writers share and discuss some of their recent work. The Hay Writers’ Circle is a dynamic group, active in Hay for more than 40 years. It offers three competitions annually for poetry, fiction and non-fiction, each of which is open to both members and non-members. There is an active work in progress group for those working on longer projects. The Circle has an ongoing, productive relationship with a local primary school.

The latest film from iconic writer-director Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette), Priscilla is a moving, nuanced and visually ravishing exploration of the dark side of celebrity, delicately retelling and re-examining one of history’s most complicated love stories.

West Germany, late 1950s. Teenage Priscilla Beaulieu (Golden Globe nominee Cailee Spaeny) receives an invitation to a party with Elvis Presley (Jacob Elordi, Saltburn). Already a meteoric rock-and-roll superstar at this time, Elvis becomes someone entirely unexpected in their private moments together: a thrilling crush, an ally in loneliness, a gentle best friend. Through Priscilla’s eyes, Coppola presents the unseen story of their long courtship and turbulent marriage: a great American myth spanning decades and oceans, from the army base where they met to his dream-world estate at Graceland.

Faithfully adapting Priscilla’s own memoir, and anchored by Spaeny’s Venice Best Actress winning performance, this is a mature and masterful cinematic feast for the senses that sees Coppola at the very top of her game.

“A transportive, heartbreaking journey into the dark heart of celebrity… Sofia Coppola at her best” – Rolling Stone

Come and experience the magical, progressive sound of Cerys Hafana, from Machynlleth, Wales, where rivers and roads meet on the way to the sea. She’s won over audiences from Green Man to the Eisteddfod and from BBC 6 Music Festival to Celtic Connections.

Hafana is a Welsh triple harpist and composer who mangles, mutates and transforms traditional music. She explores the creative possibilities and unique qualities of the triple harp, and incorporates found sounds, archival materials and electronic processing.

Edyf, her second album, is inspired by material found in the National Library of Wales archive, including fragments of Psalm tunes, hymns about doomsday and philosophical musings on the length of eternity, and was selected as one of the Guardian’s Top Ten folk albums of 2022. Her latest EP The Bitter is an innovative exploration of some dark English and Scottish ballads.

Al Murray is back with his alter ego, the Pub Landlord, making sense of the questions you probably already had the answers to but want to discuss anyway. In Guv Island, the Pub Landlord takes a look at politics, TikTok addiction and more.

Murray has toured as the Pub Landlord for more than 20 years and won accolades including the Edinburgh Comedy Award. His books include Watching War Films with My Dad and, most recently, Command, an entertaining and sharp analysis of the key allied military leaders in World War II.

Why do we need art? What does it do for our communities? How can it transform us?

These are some of the questions artists Bette Adriaanse and Brian Eno attempt to answer in this discussion about the social power of art. The pair have collaborated on social projects, and their conversation led to working together on What Art Does, a book that assembles the ideas Eno has developed during his working life.

Eno studied art at college before joining the band Roxy Music, and he spent five decades making music with people including David Bowie and Grace Jones. His visual art has been shown internationally in over 200 venues and he is involved in activist work.

Adriaanse is an artist who writes novels and short stories. She teaches in art schools and co-founded TRQSE – a network of artists and scientists who work together on social projects, which is where she met Eno.

Podcast series The Kill List tells the gripping story of a four-year true crime investigation centred on the dark web, but with real world victims across the globe. In this event, podcast presenter Jamie Bartlett and host Carl Miller share the story of how Miller, a British journalist, secretly intercepted hundreds of paid murder orders on a scam hitman-for-hire website on the darknet.

They follow his journey from first making the disturbing discovery; his race against time to warn those in danger; and the increasingly urgent battle to persuade the global authorities to get involved. Miller’s collaboration with the police agencies around the globe has led to 34 arrests and 28 convictions to date across 11 countries.

Jamie Bartlett is the presenter of several hit BBC podcasts, including The Missing Cryptoqueen. Carl Miller is a tech journalist and founder of CASM, the digital research team at the think tank Demos UK.

Len Pennie is an English/Scots performance poet sensation. Her electric debut collection Poyums is funny and fiercely feminist, whether she’s writing letters to her younger self, advocating for women’s rights or adapting fairy tales to process an abusive relationship.

Come to hear her bold, unashamedly frank take on loving, learning, surviving, growing and giving, covering her passionate opinions from minoritised languages to survivors of domestic abuse and the destigmatisation of mental illness. Don’t miss this chance to see an epic talent on the rise.

And I have done more than just simply get by

So much more than escape or survive

Through the galvanisation of love, time and patience

I’ll take hold of my story and thrive.

After life that was seldom what life ought to be

Through laughter and love I’ll be whole

This story is mine from the cover to spine

And the narrative I will control.

Come for an infectious journey through pop melodic hooks and thumping dancefloor orchestrations, overlaid with stream of consciousness vocals, set against the backdrop of pounding kick drum and club-ready synths.

It’s been a wild few years for Szmierek, self-taught poet and producer from Manchester, from self-publishing novels to honing his performance skills on the spoken word scene and gaining notoriety for his seamless flow skewering everything from the hardships of contemporary British life to finding unexpected beauty in the everyday.

His single ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Fallacy’ kicked off his meteoric ascent, finding its way onto BBC 6 Music, which named him an Artist of the Year 2023. Later… with Jools Holland and triumphant Glastonbury sets led to a flurry of comparisons to The Streets, John Cooper Clarke and Jarvis Cocker. But with his banger-filled, dancefloor-focused debut album Service Station at the End of the Universe, Szmierek cements his own distinctive sound.

See also Antony Szmierek’s book event on Sunday 25 May.

Start your day with an hour of kundalini yoga – the oldest and most transformative yoga practice. Blending physical postures, breathing techniques, meditation and mantra to awaken our life force energy located at the base of the spine, it opens us up to reach our highest potential. This unique yoga style offers profound benefits across the physical, emotional and spiritual realms. In this special class, Lucy offers a dynamic medley of the kundalini practices, designed to leave you feeling both grounded and energised, with a profound sense of peace and overall wellness as you rejoin the hum of the Festival.

Lucy Teear is a kundalini yoga teacher, plant-based nutritionist and health coach with a powerful story of transformation, following two aggressive breast cancer diagnoses in 2010 and 2016. She teaches kundalini yoga workshops at Larchwood Studios in Hay-on-Wye and runs health and yoga retreats around the world.

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.

Start your day the right way with online sensation Shaolin Master Shi Heng Yi, who has inspired millions to develop daily practices for body and mind, blending martial arts with Buddhist practices.

Shi Heng Yi’s parents (Laotian immigrants to Germany) enrolled him into Shaolin Kung Fu aged four knowing it would cultivate in him a strength of mind. As an adult, he returned to the teachings and began to develop a Shaolin school for modern living. He founded the Shaolin Temple Europe, a Buddhist community in Germany.

Join Shi Heng Yi as he talk to writer and education specialist Lamorna Ash about how to develop a strong mindset and body, and shares some of the exercises that will help you find balance and energy. Shi Heng Yi’s TED Talk on five hindrances to self-mastery has been watched over 17 million times.

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 is Friederike Otto, Senior Lecturer in Climate Science at Grantham Institute, Imperial College London.

In today’s polarised and polarising world, we need to zoom into the processes happening inside each of us. Why do some people become radicalised? Who is most susceptible to ideological thinking? Can we unchain our minds from toxic dogmas? Dr Leor Zmigrod is a pioneer in the field of ‘political neuroscience’, and drawing on her groundbreaking research she uncovers the hidden mechanisms driving our beliefs and behaviours.

Learn more about our political beliefs and ideologies – not transient thoughts in our minds, divorced from our bodies, but actually changing our neural architecture, our cells. Find out about rigid thinking in ourselves and others, and how to recognise our ability to resist irrational rules and authority. Regardless of your political stance, Zmigrod will challenge you to reassess your convictions – and what they are doing to your brain.

Playwright Suzie Miller introduces Prima Facie, her book about a brilliant defence barrister at the top of her game who realises the rules might not be in her favour after a date goes wrong.

Miller’s book, an international runaway success, is based on her award-winning play of the same name, which starred Jodie Comer as barrister Tessa Ensler. The play itself led to changes in the legal profession regarding what juries are directed to consider when they deliberate on rape cases.

Miller is an international playwright, librettist and screenwriter. She has a background in law, and has won numerous awards, including the Australian Writers’ Guild, Kit Denton Fellowship for Writing with Courage and an Olivier Award.