Hay Festival Anytime - Listen and watch writers and thinkers from Hay Festivals around the world

Start your day at Hay Festival with our daily news review. Join leading journalists and special guests as they take us behind the headlines with insider perspectives, insights and an eye on what’s next. Strong coffee recommended!

Among today’s guests are Reverend Richard Coles, co-presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live and author of the Canon Clement Mystery series, Dharshini David, author, broadcaster and Chief Economics Correspondent for BBC News, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb, host of Not Just the Tudors podcast from History Hit and Chair of Judges for the inaugural Women's Prize for Non-Fiction and chaired by former BBC Arts Correspondent and Chief News Presenter Rebecca Jones.

American-Libyan writer Hisham Matar’s new novel is about three Libyan men in political exile in London, and the emotional homeland that deep friendships can provide. It begins in 1984, the year that officials inside the Libyan embassy in London’s St James’s Square fired a machine gun into a crowd of unarmed protesters. Matar’s earlier novel, The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between, about his father’s abduction by Gaddafi’s forces and the decades-long quest to discover his fate, won the Pulitzer Prize in 2017. He discusses his new book with Alex Clark.

Fiona Williams’ The House of Broken Bricks focuses on Tess and Richard; the former yearns for the comforting chaos of life as it once was while the latter fights to get his winter crops planted rather than deal with the discussion he cannot face. Williams discusses her story of a broken family, who might be able to heal as the seasons change, with novelist Ingrid Persaud.

Illustrator Rob Biddulph sketches out a fun-packed and interactive session for all the family. Rob’s brilliant #DrawWithRob videos have inspired many to take up a pencil, and now you can join in live with a draw-along fresh from his latest book. The final book in his Peanut Jones trilogy, Peanut Jones and the End of the Rainbow, dazzles with magic, danger, friendship and art. Find out all about Rob’s journey from budding artist to award-winning picture book creator and Guinness World Record holder in this event fizzing with fun and creativity.

The Poet Laureate shares the new perspectives and energy he brings to a timeless subject in his newest collection of poems. Blossomise, published in collaboration with the National Trust as part of its annual Blossom campaign, celebrates the arrival of spring blossom and acknowledges its melancholy disappearance. Armitage talks to broadcaster and presenter Rebecca Jones.

Why might an orangutan care which toothpaste you choose? What does your mobile phone have to do with wind turbines? And can your morning coffee really power a bus? Economics affects every aspect of our lives and there are huge changes afoot as the global green revolution speeds up. Dharshini David, Chief Economics Correspondent for BBC News, reveals the green changes already taking place in every aspect of our world, from sustainable materials and corporate greenwashing to industrialisation and global trade wars. David explores the industries of energy, food, fashion, technology, manufacturing and finance, showing how the smallest details in our day can tell a bigger economic story. In conversation with Corisande Albert.

Authors Anna Funder and Sandra Newman discuss George Orwell, and highlight the women forgotten in his life and his work. Funder’s Wifedom is a non-fiction book about Orwell’s first wife, Eileen O’Shaughnessy, whose literary brilliance shaped Orwell’s work. Largely forgotten now, she is brought back to life by Funder, using newly discovered letters. Newman is the author of Julia, a retelling of Orwell’s 1984. The book explores state control over women’s bodies and the terror of totalitarianism. Newman was chosen by the Orwell Estate to write the novel and has the approval of George Orwell’s son, Richard Blair.

Palestinian writer Adania Shibli discusses her novel Minor Detail with American-Libyan writer Hisham Matar. A story about a young woman raped in the mist of the Palestian/Israeli conflict of 1949, the book was longlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize and shortlisted for the 2020 National Book Award for Translated Literature.

Minor Detail begins during the summer of 1949, one year after the war that the Palestinians mourn as the Nakba – the catastrophe that led to the displacement and expulsion of more than 700,000 people – and the Israelis celebrate as the War of Independence. Israeli soldiers capture and rape a young Palestinian woman, and kill and bury her in the sand. Many years later, a woman in Ramallah becomes fascinated to the point of obsession with this ‘minor detail’ of history. A haunting meditation on war, violence and memory, Minor Detail cuts to the heart of the Palestinian experience of dispossession, life under occupation, and the persistent difficulty of piecing together a narrative in the face of ongoing erasure and disempowerment.

Learn about the biggest vanishing trick of all time with multi-award-winning author Frank Cottrell-Boyce. In Frank’s adventure mystery, The Wonder Brothers, Blackpool Tower has disappeared. Can two young magicians do the impossible and bring back the tower? Find out about magic, hear readings and get writing tips from the master of storytelling in this fun-filled event.

With a career in fashion spanning nearly two decades Patrick Grant has a lot to say about our clothing, who makes it and how it’s made. Less: Stop Buying So Much Rubbish is a passionate and revealing book about loving clothes but despairing of a broken global system. Patrick explains the crisis of consumption and quality in fashion, and how we might make ourselves happier by rediscovering the joy of living with fewer, better quality things.

The 2014 Booker Prize winner (The Narrow Road to the Deep North) and 2002 Commonwealth Prize winner (Gould’s Book of Fish) discusses his new novel with the literary journalist. Beginning at a love hotel by Japan’s Inland Sea and ending by a river in Tasmania, Question 7 is about the choices we make about love and the chain reaction that follows. By way of HG Wells and Rebecca West’s affair through 1930s nuclear physics to Flanagan’s father working as a slave labourer near Hiroshima when the atom bomb is dropped, this daisy chain of events reaches fission when a young man finds himself trapped in a rapid on a wild river not knowing if he is to live or to die.

The British Museum houses more than 60,000 objects from the Americas but only a small percentage have ever been exhibited to the public. To analyse this extensive collection, Hay Festival and the Santo Domingo Centre of Excellence for Latin American Research at the British Museum commissioned six writers, including Selva Almada (Argentina), Philippe Sands (UK) and Juan Gabriel Vásquez (Colombia), with a specialist Museum team, to research the documents narrating how certain objects arrived at the institution.

These ranged from diaries, letters and sketches to reflections and transactions, all forming part of the process of acquisition and examination. Focusing on aspects of the archives that caught their attention, the six authors imagined their own narratives, whose protagonists are the adventurers, dreamers and thieves in the title of this anthology, published by Latin American specialists Charco Press.

Wildlife and ecosystems across the globe face enormous threats, but identifying conservation priorities and approaches poses many challenging questions. How do we balance the desire to protect threatened wildlife species with the needs of human populations? Who decides? Join a conversation between the Head of Aberystwyth University’s School of Veterinary Science, Professor Darrell Abernethy, Oliver Smith from the World Wildlife Federation and Jennifer Wolowic, Principal Lead of Aberystwyth University Dialogue Centre, to explore how some of the world’s most treasured species are being impacted by human activities and natural crises.

Daniel Clement has suffered a secret humiliation and to recover, takes respite at the monastery where he was a novice. But there are tensions building there, too, as the dark past of novice master Father Paul emerges, and a murder ensues. Meanwhile back at the village of Champton, Daniel is the subject of gossip, his mother Audrey is up to something again, there's trouble at the dress shop, and the puppies are running riot. The Anglican priest who co-presented Saturday Live on BBC Radio 4 for 11 years and has won Celebrity Mastermind twice discusses the third book in his Canon Clement Mystery series with radiohost Natasha Knight.

The British Empire is a subject of both shame and glorification. Journalist Sathnam Sanghera talks to historian David Olusoga about how our imperial past is everywhere: from how we live and think to the foundation of the NHS and even our response to the Covid-19 crisis. Sanghera is author of Empireland and most recently Empireworld, a look at how British imperialism has shaped the world. Olusoga’s latest book is Black History for Every Day of the Year.

Jones and Murray discuss their memoirs, both captivating accounts of unusual lives in late twentieth century Britain, in which celebrities pop up regularly. Jones grew up in 1970s London, spending the next decade building a glittering career as a newspaper editor leading up to his multi-award-winning tenure at GQ. In These Foolish Things he reflects on how he sought to stir up music, politics and fashion. In My Family and Other Rock Stars, Murray recounts a freewheeling whirlwind of a childhood in the late 1970s, living with her mum, a Cordon Bleu chef, at the iconic recording studio Rockfield. At this place of legend, where some of the most famous rock albums of all time were recorded, the chances of bumping into Freddie Mercury or David Bowie were as normal as hopscotch and homework.

Ever outspoken, controversial and spectacularly entertaining, Britain’s naughtiest actor and the author of This Much is True returns with more juicy, jaw-dropping stories from her eventful life and career. Join us on another unforgettable adventure through the extraordinary life and strong opinions of Miriam Margolyes.

“My new book is called Oh Miriam! – something that has been said to me a lot over the years, often in tones of strong disapproval. It contains lots more revelations and stories and discoveries and I can’t wait to share it with you all!” From being escorted off the Today programme (for saying what we were all thinking) to declaring her love to Vanessa Redgrave; from Tales of the Unexpected to Graham Norton’s sofa, she is our most loved and most outspoken national treasure. Oh Miriam! Stories from an Extraordinary Life takes you inside both her head and her heart. Buckle up for the most irrepressible, hilarious and moving event as she tells all to lawyer and writer Philippe Sands.

Ever since he was a child, kicking broken footballs on the streets of East London in the shadow of Canary Wharf’s skyscrapers, Gary Stevenson wanted something better.

Then he won a bank competition and a position as the youngest trader in the City, a place where you could make more money than you’d ever imagined and your colleagues are dysfunctional maths geniuses, overfed public schoolboys and borderline psychopaths yet start to feel like family. Stevenson talks about dealing in a trillion dollars a day, and how it felt as he realised the wealth of a few depended on millions becoming poorer and poorer. Stevenson talks to broadcaster and presenter Rebecca Jones.

The last few years have seen the world plunged into division and isolation, with a pandemic, multiple wars and the effects of climate change. In the face of these disasters, society is left yearning for both guidance and a place to shelter. Together, spiritual directors Marie-Elsa Bragg and Rowan Williams will interrogate what spiritual leadership looks like within the UK and globally during these fragmented times, and how we can engage in spiritual retreats in the modern world.

In Passions of the Soul, former Archbishop of Canterbury Williams looks at how the Eastern Christian tradition teaches us how to develop our self-knowledge and awareness, so that we can better relate to the world. In Sleeping Letters Bragg, a priest in the diocese of London and Duty Chaplain of Westminster Abbey, returns through prose and poetry to the night her mother died by suicide, when Bragg was just six.

Playwright and novelist Michael Frayn discusses the art of storytelling with his daughter, screenwriter and novelist Rebecca Frayn, in an event chaired by his grandson, producer and filmmaker Jack Harries. They discuss Michael Frayn’s memoir Among Others, Rebecca Frayn’s new novel Lost in Ibiza, and much more. Michael Frayn is best known for his dramas Noises Off, Copenhagen and Democracy. Rebecca Frayn is a documentary maker and screenwriter whose work includes Killing Me Softly and Misbehaviour. Harries is a documentary filmmaker and producer, co-founder of Earthrise Studio.

In 1972, an eight-year-old Spencer was sent to boarding school for the first time. The Earl recounts the trauma of being sent away from home. His poignant memoir and account of social history A Very Private School offers a clear-eyed, first-hand account of a culture of cruelty at the school he attended and gives insights into an antiquated boarding system. Drawing on his contemporaries’ and his own memories, he reflects on the hopelessness and abandonment he felt, the intense pain of homesickness and the appalling sense of inescapability.

Educated at Eton College and Oxford, Spencer became a historian, broadcaster and author (with four Sunday Times bestsellers, and A Very Private School being a No. 1 bestseller). He harnesses his talent for historical analysis to explore the long-lasting impact of his experiences, sharing this candid reckoning with Reverend Richard Coles, with whom he co-hosts the Rabbit Hole Detectives podcast (alongside Dr Cat Jarman).