Hay Festival 2024

From Ecuador and India to Canada, writer Robert Macfarlane explores the ancient idea that rivers are living beings; an idea that has taken on new relevance and urgency as we face a planet battling the effects of climate change. Sharing stories and insights from his new book Is a River Alive?, Macfarlane shifts our perspective, making us see that our fate is tied into that of our rivers.

Macfarlane, a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, is internationally renowned for his writing on nature, people and place. His bestselling books include Underland, Landmarks and The Wild Places, as well as a book-length prose-poem, Ness.

In collaboration with the artist Jackie Morris he co-created the internationally bestselling books of nature-poetry and art, The Lost Words and The Lost Spells. He is currently completing his third book with Morris: The Lost Birds.

Spend a lively evening in the company of Alexander McCall Smith as he introduces the latest instalment of his series The Perfect Passion Company. In Looking For You, Katie Donald is eager to continue helping the lovelorn find connection, and with news of her expertise spreading, she’s inundated with people seeking her advice.

McCall Smith is author of the highly successful No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, which has sold over 25 million copies. He’ll take us through his inspirations, share stories of his research into the world of matchmaking, and offer a look at his writing career. He’ll also discuss The Lost Language of Oysters, the latest novel in his hilarious von Igelfeld series, charting the mishaps of Professor Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld and his colleagues at the University of Regensburg’s Institute of Romance Philology.

Austrian film director GW Pabst was one of the greatest directors of his era, but when the Nazis seized power he found himself forced to return to Germany, despite plans to emigrate to America. Daniel Kehlmann’s new novel The Director fictionalises the story of Pabst, who made two films under Josef Goebbels, the minister of propaganda in Berlin.

Kehlmann talks to journalist Misha Glenny about The Director, what literature is capable of, and writing about art, power and barbarism. Kehlmann’s novel Tyll was shortlisted for the 2020 International Booker Prize, and Measuring the World has been translated into over 14 languages.

Get your groove on with British soul and R&B legend Billy Ocean as he performs all his greatest hits and fan favourites. Ocean is one of the biggest recording stars Britain has ever produced, and has just released his 40th anniversary album, Suddenly.

Born in Trinidad and moving to London’s East End when he was just seven, Ocean has sold more than 30 million records and won awards including a Grammy and an Ivor Novello. In 2020 he was made an MBE for services to music.

Two powerhouses of children’s literature captivate in this creative event bringing William Shakespeare’s work to life with the help of some special guests. Poet Michael Rosen and illustrator Chris Riddell, both former children’s laureates, have collaborated on Pocket Shakespeare: A Beginner’s Guide to the Best Bits of the Bard, a celebration of the words of Shakespeare.

In this event, Rosen will guide the audience through the Bard’s exploration of love, heartbreak, magic, superstition and more, including insults and one-liners, accompanied by Riddell, who’ll draw live on stage.

Truth is a much-debated concept in our modern world, but according to Mike Berners-Lee (There is No Planet B) there’s nothing more important. The climate and sustainability expert delves into his new book A Climate of Truth, to spell out why, if humanity is to thrive in the decades ahead, the most critical step is to raise standards of honesty in our politics, our media and our businesses. By turning our attention to the principle of truth, he argues, we can all have much more impact on the issues we care about. The professor in the Institute for Social Futures at Lancaster University talks to journalist Rosie Boycott.

Award-winning broadcasters Emma Barnett (BBC Radio 4’s Today programme) and Stacey Dooley (Stacey Dooley Sleeps Over) take a personal, political and cultural look at motherhood and the impact it has on women. The pair’s honest and open conversation will look at the experience of becoming a mother and the physical and mental work required in motherhood, celebrating mothers of all kinds.

Barnett’s Maternity Service was written in snatched moments after the birth of her second child, and is a heartfelt and reassuring look at what it really feels like to be on maternity leave. In Dear Minnie, written after she had her first child, Dooley brings her trademark empathy and investigative skill to an entirely new ‘frontline’, exploring the varied perspectives of mothers today.

Drop the mic! Award-winning teacher, Sky Kids superstar, World Book Day ambassador and viral book-rapping sensation MC Grammar heads to Hay to introduce his brand-new series, The Adventures of Rap Kid.

Get ready to meet Z, his beatboxing sidekick SFX, their super-slick teacher Mr G, and his dawg Pup Smoke, in a story about friendship, the power of words and finding your voice.

Grab your bling and your shades and make your way to this epic event jam-packed with jokes, bangin' tunes, wicked rhymes, a sick rap battle, and the greatest dance-off of all time!

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.

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.

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.

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.

British broadcaster Naga Munchetty (BBC Breakfast) leads a candid discussion about women’s health and pain, exploring why the healthcare system can often feel rigged against women.

Munchetty spoke out in 2023 about her diagnosis of the gynaecological condition adenomyosis and her struggles to be taken seriously by healthcare professionals despite years of pain and symptoms. In response, scores of women shared their own stories of feeling dismissed by doctors, and Munchetty went on to campaign on the issue. Her book It’s Probably Nothing explores the challenges of being heard, diagnosed and treated.

In this event Munchetty looks at why women’s pain and health issues have historically been ignored – and why pain has been viewed as an innate part of being female – and highlights the things women need to do to advocate for themselves in the healthcare system.

From social change and hope to the climate crisis and masculinity, there’s not a subject Rebecca Solnit can’t turn her mind to. In this event with farmer and author James Rebanks, she discusses No Straight Road Takes You There: Essays for Uneven Terrain, a collection of essays revolving around the power of activism and covering subjects including women’s rights, the fight for democracy, trends in masculinity and the rise of the far right in the West.

Solnit is author of more than 20 books, including Recollections of My Non-Existence, which was longlisted for the 2021 Orwell Prize for Political Writing and shortlisted for the 2021 James Tait Black Award, and the collection of essays Men Explain Things to Me.

Meet Javier Cercas, one of Spain’s most renowned writers, as he discusses his crime trilogy Terra Alta. Cercas opens up the world of Terra Alta, and delves into the series’ final book, Fortress of Evil, where Melchor – who years before took revenge for his mother’s murder – finds his peace shattered when his teenage daughter Cosette discovers the truth behind her own mother’s death.

Cercas’ awards include the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for Soldiers of Salamis, the European Book Prize for The Impostor, and the Dagger for Crime Fiction in Translation for Even the Darkest Night, the first book in the Terra Alta trilogy. He talks to journalist Kirsty Lang.

Spend a special afternoon with author Michael Morpurgo and musician and actor Ben Murray, as they retell War Horse in this moving concert.

First published in 1982, War Horse is one of Morpurgo’s best known and most beloved books. It has gone on to be adapted for the stage in an award-winning production by the National Theatre and for the screen in a Steven Spielberg film.

Told from the perspective of a young farm horse Joey, it follows his story as he is taken from the fields of Devon to the Western Front after being sold to the British Army in 1914. With his officer, Joey charges towards the enemy, witnessing the horror of the frontline.

In this event, Morpurgo retells an abridged version of War Horse accompanied by music and songs from Murray, who previously played the Songman in the National Theatre production of the book.

Gone are the days when just one bad guy ran an autocracy; now, sophisticated networks prop up autocratic leaders and encourage a move away from democracy. Pulitzer-winning historian and journalist Anne Applebaum (Gulag) has tracked the slide away from democracy for decades.

From Russia to North Korea and Syria, she takes us on a tour of The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, and explains how autocracies operate like giant companies, relying on financial structures, security services and technological experts providing surveillance, propaganda and disinformation. An essential event if you’re interested in what the future looks like for our governments.

Former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard will be remembered for being the first woman in the role in that country’s history, but even more so for her misogyny speech to parliament, in which she called out politician Tony Abbott for his hypocrisy and sexism.

This event will be recorded live for Julia Gillard’s podcast, A Podcast of One’s Own.

Join the novelist and screenwriter as she launches her haunting new novel. A boundary-pushing thriller told through the lens of a lyrical family drama, The House of Water is both unsettling and thought-provoking.

Placing that key in the lock was the last ordinary moment of her life. Iona returns home one evening to find her family murdered and her father missing. Her home is entirely submerged in water. An unnamed girl lies dead in her bed. As the police declare her father the main suspect, Iona is forced to confront how much she really knew about the man who raised her. Hidden in the fragments of her father’s final manuscript, recovered from the flood, an unimaginable secret slowly rises to the surface.

Grab a front row seat to an extraordinary conversation between two literary greats: Nobel Prize-winner Abdulrazak Gurnah and Booker-shortlisted Elif Shafak. The pair talk about their writing, the role of literature in presenting diverse perspectives, and the power of storytelling to bring hope in times of crisis and in a deeply polarised and fractured world.

Gurnah’s latest novel is Theft, in which he explores the intertwined lives of three young people as they come of age in postcolonial East Africa. He is Emeritus Professor of English and Postcolonial Literatures at the University of Kent.

Until now, poet Gwyneth Lewis has kept the story of her painful upbringing at the hands of a coercive and controlling mother to herself. In her memoir Nightshade Mother, the inaugural National Poet of Wales shares her story through revisiting her childhood diaries and looking back on her younger years.

Lewis was brought up Welsh-speaking in Cardiff. She was Wales’s first National Poet and composed the six-foot-high words on the front of the Wales Millennium Centre. Her non-fiction books are Sunbathing in the Rain: A Cheerful Book on Depression and Two in a Boat: A Marital Voyage. Her tenth book of poetry, First Rain in Paradise, is out in March 2025. In 2023, Lewis was made an MBE for services to literature and mental health.

The presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Making History, and co-presenter of The Rest is History podcast, brings his expertise to bear on Suetonius’ renowned biography of the twelve Caesars. The ancient Roman empire was the supreme arena, where emperors had no choice but to fight, thrill and dazzle. Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus’ Lives of the Caesars was written from the centre of Rome and power in AD 121, and no biography invites us in more vividly or intimately.

Tom Holland presents his new translation, giving a deeper understanding of the personal lives of the Caesars and of how they inevitably informed what happened across the vast expanse of the empire. Holland is author of Rubicon: The Triumph and the Tragedy of the Roman Republic.

Clown around with the sensational Tweedy the Clown, who’ll bring the magic of the circus to life with his antics.

Tweedy’s new laugh-out-loud picture book adventure is Tweedy: The Clown Who Lost His Nose, illustrated by Daniel Duncan, in which Tweedy causes chaos as he tries to chase after his lost nose.

Join comedian Julian Clary and broadcaster Susie Dent (Countdown) for a lively discussion about writing their new crime novels, and how they call on their careers and experiences for inspiration.

Clary’s Curtain Call to Murder follows dresser Jayne as she tries to solve a murder that takes place on stage at the London Palladium. She’s hindered by the cast, including an ageing lothario, a national treasure and an amateur psychic. In Dent’s Guilty by Definition an anonymous letter arrives at the offices of the Clarendon English Dictionary containing a challenge for the team of lexicographers. But the letter hints at secrets and lies…

They talk to writer and Guardian literary critic Chris Power.

As the first Muslim to serve in a British cabinet, there are few people better placed than Conservative peer Sayeeda Warsi to reflect on the position of Muslims in the UK, and the rising tide of Islamophobia they face. Discussing her book Muslims Don’t Matter, Baroness Warsi looks at the far-right riots that broke out in the UK in 2024, how more hatred has been directed at Muslims in public life during the war on Gaza, and how a network of media and commentators feed Islamophobia. She urges us to change course and unite to dismantle this toxic bigotry.

Warsi is a lawyer, businesswoman and racial justice campaigner. She was instrumental in the launch of Operation Black Vote, a national not-for-profit working towards greater racial justice throughout the UK. Rachel Shabi has reported extensively on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She is author of Off-White: The Truth About Antisemitism.

Fans of Burkeman’s popular ‘This Column Will Change Your Life’, which ran for many years in the Guardian, will jump at this chance to navigate the big questions of psychology with the man himself.

How do we embrace the reality of our finiteness? How do we make decisions and act with conviction when there is always too much to do and failure is inevitable? How do we find a deeper sense of purpose when we realise that life is not a problem to be solved? How does care for others make us more free?

Burkemann talks to critic and writer Stephanie Merritt about encouraging us to embrace our limitations, showing how to thrive in an age of bewilderment and make time for what counts.

Comedy powerhouse Katherine Ryan performs a routine that will make you laugh until you cry. Ryan has recently been touring her new stand-up show Battleaxe, which includes discussions about her marriage and family, and looks at how male comedians reacted to revelations about sexual misconduct in the industry.

The award-winning comedian, writer, presenter and actor has starred in a number of television shows and performed the stand-up specials In Trouble and Glitter Room for Netflix. She is a regular on our screens, with multiple appearances on game shows including Celebrity Gogglebox, Never Mind The Buzzcocks and A League Of Their Own.

Few contemporary authors are as adept as Jojo Moyes at combining intimate family stories with big emotions and topics, and her latest novel is no exception. Moyes introduces We All Live Here, a story of family and love that follows Lila Kennedy, who is dealing with a broken marriage, two wayward daughters, a house that is falling apart and an elderly stepfather who seems to have quietly moved in.

So when her real dad, who ran off to Hollywood 35 years before, turns up at her doorstep, it feels like the final straw. But Lila soon realises that even the family you thought you could never forgive might have something to teach you.

Moyes’ books include Me Before You, The One Plus One and The Giver of Stars.

Renowned evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins guides us through The Genetic Book of the Dead, a groundbreaking exploration of the untapped potential of DNA to transform our understanding of evolution.

Dawkins explains how the body, behaviour and genes of every living creature can be read as a book – an archive of the worlds of its ancestors.

Dawkins is an eminent writer and thinker, author of The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, and The God Delusion, among others. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Royal Society of Literature.

Before comedian Chris McCausland wowed audiences on Strictly Come Dancing, he spent years honing his stand-up skills and appearing on some of the UK’s best-loved panel shows, from Have I Got News for You to The Last Leg.

And yet, he’s still often called an ‘overnight success’, despite being on the stand-up scene for years. Join McCausland for a masterclass in stand-up comedy, one that has been yonks in the making!

Through her unprecedented reading of Homer’s Iliad, a story thousands of years old, award-winning classicist Edith Hall helps us understand the history of the ecological disaster that threatens our planet.

The roots of today’s environmental catastrophe run deep into humanity’s past, and Hall looks at how – under the story of war and its effects – the Iliad documents the environmental practices of the ancient Greeks and betrays an awareness of the dangers posed by the destruction of the natural landscape.

Hall argues the Iliad can inspire activism to rescue our planet from disaster in this eye-opening event, after which you’ll never view the classic Greek tale the same way again.

Hall is a professor in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at Durham University. She has written over 30 books, including most recently Facing Down the Furies: Suicide, the Ancient Greeks, and Me.

Head into the forest with explorer Levison Wood as he shares the profound influence forests have had on our planet and civilisation. Having spent a lifetime exploring wild places and witnessing environmental challenges and conservation efforts around the world, Wood now turns his attention to the forest in The Great Tree Story, and will discuss the book and his experiences of woodlands around the world.

Wood is a bestselling author, photographer and explorer. He has written seven other books, including Walking the Himalayas, which won Adventure Travel Book of the Year at the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards.

Kit de Waal is author of My Name is Leon, which was adapted for BBC Two, and The Trick to Time, which was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. In this event she discusses her writing career and her luminous new novel.

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.

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.

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 author of The Midnight Library and How to Stop Time introduces his new novel The Life Impossible, a story of wild adventure and deep transformation.

When retired maths teacher Grace is left a run-down house on a Mediterranean island by a long-lost friend, curiosity gets the better of her. She arrives in Ibiza with a one-way ticket, no guidebook and no plan.

As a young lawyer, Philippe Sands was approached to advise a man facing arrest for his crimes: Chilean dictator Augustus Pinochet. But instead of acquiescing to the request, Sands chose to act as a barrister for a human rights organisation, leading to an investigation that uncovered the chilling truth about Pinochet, a former SS officer, and an unassuming house at 38 Londres Street in Santiago, Chile, where people were taken to be disappeared.

Sands talks to writer and journalist Juan Gabriel Vásquez about his book 38 Londres Street, a unique blend of memoir, detective story and courtroom drama, and about his extraordinary career. Sands is Professor of Public Understanding of Law at UCL, visiting professor at Harvard Law School and a practising barrister. He has been involved in many significant international cases, including Pinochet, Yugoslavia, Guantanamo and the Rohingya. His book East West Street won the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-fiction.

Israel’s war on Gaza and Lebanon has brought to light two competing narratives of the last century: the West’s triumphant account of victory over Nazi and communist totalitarianism versus the global majority’s frequently thwarted version of racial equality.

In his new book The World After Gaza, Indian essayist and novelist Pankaj Mishra takes the war in the Middle East, and the bitterly polarised reaction to it, as the starting point for a broad reevaluation of these two narratives.

Mishra talks to historian William Dalrymple about how the world’s balance of power is shifting, and why it is critically important to enter into the experiences and perspectives of the majority of the world’s population. His previous books include From the Ruins of Empire and Age of Anger: A History of the Present.

Radiohead bassist Colin Greenwood’s book How to Disappear has been two decades in the making. Taking us from the stage to the rehearsal room, it illuminates the creative process of one of the 21st century’s most influential bands.

In this event, Radiohead bassist Colin Greenwood tells stories from his career and guides us through some of the candid photographs he’s taken. Greenwood has played bass in Radiohead since their formation in 1985. He has also recorded and toured with Tamino, Nick Cave and Warren Ellis and has written for publications including the Guardian and the Spectator.

Radiohead has sold more than 30 million albums worldwide. Their many accolades include six Grammy and four Ivor Novello Awards. The group were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019 and their 1997 album OK Computer is archived in the US Library of Congress.

José Eustasio Rivera’s classic Latin American novel The Vortex is widely recognised as one of the best novels written in Colombia. It follows young poet Arturo Cova and his lover, Alicia, as they elope from Bogotá and embark on an adventure through Colombia’s varied and magical landscapes. When Alicia disappears, Arturo and his unstoppable ego must follow her. In pursuing her, Arturo becomes an inadvertent witness to the appalling conditions suffered by workers forced or tricked into tapping rubber trees.

Colombian writer Juan Gabriel Vásquez (The Sound of Things Falling, Retrospective) and Erna von der Walde, a specialist in Colombian and Latin American literature, culture and politics, have written a new foreword for the book. They talk to Daniel Hahn – one of the translators into English of The Vortex – about this inventive, funny and wildly prescient novel about the human and environmental costs of extractive systems.

For a millennium and a half, India was a confident exporter of its diverse civilisation, creating around it a vast empire of ideas that were spread across the world along a Golden Road stretching from the Red Sea to the Pacific. Indian art, religions, technology, astronomy, music, dance, literature, mathematics and mythology blazed a trail across the globe.

Historian William Dalrymple (The Golden Road) draws on a lifetime of scholarship to highlight India’s oft-forgotten position as the heart of ancient Eurasia, sharing stories of the Indian ideas that transformed both the ancient world and our modern societies, from the trade that helped fund the Roman Empire to the creation of the numerals we use today (including zero).

Dalrymple’s books include White Mughals, The Last Mughal and Return of a King. He has written and presented three television series and co-hosts, with Anita Anand, the podcast Empire.

“Hello to you, I am with news. I have a new book: I Haven’t Been Entirely Honest with You. I know – what an intriguing title!”

Comedian Miranda Hart has been keeping a secret or two, but she’s ready to reveal all now. From surprising joys to challenging lows, via love and chronic illness, Hart shares the values and practical tools that led her to a sense of freedom, joy and physical recovery she never would have thought possible. Life now, amazingly, with what she will share, is – SUCH FUN!

Hart is a writer, comedian and actor. She is best known for her much-loved and multi-award-winning sitcom Miranda, as well as her BAFTA-nominated role of Chummy in Call the Midwife. She is the first female comedian to do an arena stand-up tour with her ‘My, What I Call, Live Show’.

Internationally renowned lyricist Sir Tim Rice steps out from the wings and takes to the stage to reflect on his illustrious career at the heart of musical theatre.

This evening of music and anecdotes sees Rice sharing the stories behind some of the most-loved and best-known musicals of our time, from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Jesus Christ Superstar to Evita and the Disney productions The Lion King, Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast.

A must for fans of musical theatre, there will be performances by some of the UK’s leading West End singers, including ‘Don’t Cry For Me Argentina’, ‘Any Dream Will Do’ and ‘I Know Him So Well’.