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Hay Festival 2024

Escape the day-to-day at Hay Festival Hay-on-Wye 2024. Join us 23 May–2 June at our free-to-enter Festival site. Explore the full programme and book your individual events below. If you want to see the programme at a glance, please use our schedule view.

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Event FiltersYou are viewing events filtered byWednesday 29 May 2024Reset all filters
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WorkshopAmy Forbes-Robertson & Lisa Hallgarten

Event 212

Amy Forbes-Robertson & Lisa Hallgarten

Relationships & Sex Education for Primary School Parents* Workshop

–  Creative Hub
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An evening workshop for parents/carers/guardians/teachers/interested grown-ups* with It Happens Education (ithappens.education) and Brook (brook.org.uk) discussing Relationships, Sex & Health Education (RSHE). Come and find out about the history of the subject, the big RSHE picture and look at some current UK data. What do we want for our young people? What do young people say they want? Why is it important to start these conversations at home? How should you navigate this tricky terrain as a family? We promise top tips, conversation-starters and lots of engaging discussions and activities.

The event includes a 20 minute break where you can relax and grab a drink from the bar.

*Everyone is welcome at this session. The practical activities will have a focus on conversations with primary-aged children.
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ConversationAlison Weir

Event 213

Alison Weir

Mary I: Queen of Sorrows

–  Discovery Stage
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Princess Mary was the adored only child of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon and was raised in the golden splendour of her father’s court. But her world soon began to fall apart: the King wanted a son and heir, and her parents’ marriage was crumbling. Exiled from the court and her beloved mother, she sought solace in her faith but found the choices she faced would haunt her for years to come. Alison Weir fictionalises the life of Princess Mary, who went on to be known as Bloody Mary, in her new Tudor novel. She discusses the drama and tragedy of the royal’s life.

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ConversationJackie Kay in conversation with Lemn Sissay

Event 214

Jackie Kay in conversation with Lemn Sissay

May Day

–  Wye Stage
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Poet Jackie Kay’s new collection reflects on several decades of her political activism, from her Glasgow childhood, accompanying her parents on Socialist campaigns, through the feminist, LGBT+ and anti-racist movements of the 1980s and 1990s, to the present day when a global pandemic intersects with the urgency of Black Lives Matter. Her writing brings to life a cast of influential figures – Jamaican model Fanny Eaton, muse of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in England; singer and Marxist academic Angela Davis; and poet and civil rights campaigner Audre Lorde. Woven through are lyric poems on the loss of Kay’s parents: poems of grief infused with the light of love and celebration.

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ActivityJames Harkin and Anna Ptaszynski

Event 215

James Harkin and Anna Ptaszynski

A LOAD OF OLD BALLS: The QI History of Sport - talk and fun quiz with great prizes

–  Meadow Stage
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The QI elves and No Such Thing as a Fish podcasters James Harkin and Anna Ptaszynski (authors of A LOAD OF OLD BALLS: The QI History of Sport) host a fun-packed, interactive event that delves into the world of sport, from Mayan footballing legends to Ancient Egyptian wrestling, Victorian ‘bicycle face’ to the unsatisfying spectacle of modern-day robot football. Find out what pigs’ bladders, oranges and a kangaroo’s scrotum have in common. Test your knowledge in the quiz, win some great prizes and hear some surprising facts and intriguing stories, including the psychology of football chants, pole-vaulting priests and professional pillow-fighting.

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ConversationPip Williams talks to Louise Adler

Event 216

Pip Williams talks to Louise Adler

The Power of Words

–  Spring Stage
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Pip Williams didn’t always love words, which is ironic given her bestselling and award-winning novels are both focused on language. She discusses both books – The Dictionary of Lost Words and The Bookbinder of Jericho – as well as the way in which she pursued words to understand their power to control and their potential to enrich. Williams also talks about her research in the archives of Oxford University Press, her efforts to bind her own books and the irony of writing about words when she still has trouble spelling them. She talks to Louise Adler, director of Adelaide Writers’ Week.

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PerformanceThe Platform

Event 217

The Platform

–  Exchange Marquee
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The Platform is a new space for young, emerging artists to share their work with Hay Festival audiences. Spanning a diverse range of art forms, The Platform aims to elevate and develop outstanding creative artists at the start of their careers. Join us to discover and support some of the best young talent working in the UK today.

Free but ticketed
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PerformanceShaparak Khorsandi, Laura Lexx and Lou Sanders

Event 218

Shaparak Khorsandi, Laura Lexx and Lou Sanders

Hay Festival Comedy Club

–  Discovery Stage
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Enjoy a night of laughter at the Festival’s Comedy Club, with MC Laura Lexx and comedians Shaparak Khorsandi and Lou Sanders. Comedian, author and actor Lexx has appeared on the BBC’s Live at The Apollo and comedy shows including Mock The Week and Celebrity Mastermind. Her debut novel Pivot was released in 2023. Khorsandi is a comedian, author, speaker and advocate for human rights. She’s appeared on Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow, I’m a Celebrity: Get Me Out of Here and 8 Out Of 10 Cats, among many others, and her latest book is Scatter Brain. Sanders co-hosts Mel Giedroyc’s Unforgivable, is a previous Taskmaster (Dave/C4) champion and has toured her live shows to packed houses across the world.

Brought to you by Little Wander, the team behind the Machynlleth Comedy Festival.

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ConversationMarianna Spring in conversation with Adam Rutherford

Event 219

Marianna Spring in conversation with Adam Rutherford

Among the Trolls

–  Wye Stage
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Trolls are to be found on every social media platform, and few have as intimate an experience and knowledge of trolling than Marianna Spring, the BBC’s first disinformation and social media correspondent. She discusses her book Among the Trolls, in which she tracks down both trolls and their victims, trying to work out where people’s vitriol comes from, why the information battle threatens society as a whole and how people get caught up in trolling and misinformation. Spring presents podcasts and documentaries investigating disinformation and social media for BBC Radio 4 podcasts, as well as for BBC Panorama and BBC Three. In conversation with writer and broadcaster, Adam Rutherford.

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ConversationJazz Money and Ellen van Neerven

Event 220

Jazz Money and Ellen van Neerven

Always Was, Always Will Be

–  Spring Stage
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Two of Australia’s leading First Nations poets living today, Jazz Money and Ellen van Neerven, showcase their exceptional work and voices in this not-to-be-missed poetry session. The pair are among a long line of First Nations storytellers who have been truth-telling on the Australian continent for tens of thousands of years. Their role as Indigenous poets who are preserving and amplifying these stories is both personal and political. Money’s award-winning debut collection is How to Make a Basket. Van Neerven is author of Heat and Light and Throat, which won Book of the Year at the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards in 2021.

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ConversationRoger Lewis talks to Stephen Fry

Event 404

Roger Lewis talks to Stephen Fry

Erotic Vagrancy

–  Meadow Stage
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Comic genius Roger Lewis (author of Seasonal Suicide Notes) takes on Hollywood, delusion, celebrity and the last century’s ultimate glamour couple: Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Lewis uses this impossibly desirable and damaged pair – accused by the Vatican of ‘erotic vagrancy’ – to tell the story of an age of excess: the freaks and groupies, the private jets, jewels and yachts; the magnificent bad taste and greed. He talks to the Hay Festival Global President about this clash of worlds: the filth and decay of South Wales and the grandeur and elegance of Old Hollywood; the fantasies we have about film stars and the fantasies the Burtons had about each other.
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PerformanceJohnny Flynn and Robert Macfarlane

Event 221

Johnny Flynn and Robert Macfarlane

In Concert

–  Global Stage
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Prepare for a unique evening of music and storytelling from musician Johnny Flynn and nature writer Robert Macfarlane. The pair have released two albums, the most recent 2023’s The Moon Also Rises, described by the Guardian as “uplifting and muscular English folk stylings, courtesy of Flynn, with ancient and modern themes interwoven in these co-written lyrics”.

Flynn is a singer, composer, musician and actor who tours with his own band and regularly composes for film, TV and theatre. He is currently appearing as Richard Burton in Jack Thorne’s play The Motive and the Cue, directed by Sam Mendes. Macfarlane is author of books including Underland and The Old Ways, and with Jackie Morris as illustrator, is the author of The Lost Words and The Lost Spells.

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