Hay Festival 2024

In a world where trust in leaders falters and difficult conversations seem dangerous, Dr Anwen Elias, Co-director of the Centre for Welsh Politics and Society, and Dr Jennifer Wolowic, Principal Lead of Aberystwyth University Dialogue Centre, are launching ‘Doing Democracy Differently’. This project builds on current trends in participatory democracy and asks us to embrace our greatest resource – human creativity. Imagine community-led photography, collage and art shaping policies and institutions directly. Doing Democracy Differently aims to become a rallying call to transform the landscape of democracy, weaving together active citizenship, artistic expression and public policy. Join Elias and Wolowic as they embark on a journey to redefine how democracy unfolds.

Peep through the lens of an undercover teen journalist following the lives of Gen Z’s rich and famous… In conversation with the internet’s resident librarian Jack Edwards, award-winning author Benjamin Dean (The King is Dead) draws on his previous career as a celebrity journalist, examining the dark underbelly of showbiz. Come and get the low-down on his deliciously dark and addictive thriller.

On the face of things, Abel is Hollywood’s latest teen star, but in fact he’s on a mission to expose the entertainment industry and the part it played in his brother’s ‘accidental’ death. He soon discovers that beneath the glittering surface of fame lies a darker world of secrecy, scandal and murder.

Do you have lots of creative ideas, but you're not sure how to get them down on paper? Join award-winning storyteller, cartoonist and author/illustrator of The Cheat Book, Ramzee, in this interactive draw-along where he'll guide you step-by-step through the process of taking ideas and turning them into your own unique creations. Learn how Ramzee created his main character, Kamal, who is on a hilarious journey from invisible to invincible at school. Can Kamal successfully cheat his way onto the cool table?

Please bring your own sketchbook and pencils to draw along in this event.

Come to the Family Garden for a pizza masterclass with Kitchen Garden Pizza. In this one-hour session your imagination and creativity will be fed along with your belly! You’ll get your hands messy with freshly grown and foraged ingredients, make and top your own dough and observe the pizzaioli at work at the wood-fired oven. And while you wait for your pizza to cook, you can decorate your own pizza box!
Dairy-free and gluten-free options available.

It’s election year in both the UK and the US, which means politicians trying to win our vote, endless scandals and arguments, and a search for the people and parties we think are going to work for us. Join the Observer’s Carole Cadwalladr, US historian Sarah Churchwell and television journalist Matt Frei for a round table discussion with journalist Matthew D’Ancona. They look at the contenders on both sides of the Atlantic, the challenges facing the new governments and what the implications of the elections are at home and abroad.

Want to grow your own food but have no idea where to start? Or perhaps you think you don’t have enough space? Whatever your concern, this panel will help you take the first steps in your journey to become more self-sufficient. Chef Sam Cooper and gardener Huw Richards share practical advice on growing your own, discussing DIY projects, growing skills and ideas for how to make the most of homegrown fruit and vegetables. Peter Wohlleben draws on his experiences of moving with his wife, Miriam, from the city to a remote forest lodge in the early 1990s, where they learnt how to plant and rotate crops and tend to the needs of their animals and environment. Their experiences are recounted in their book Our Little Farm. In conversation with Kitty Corrigan, a free-lance journalist with a special interest in rural and environmental issues.

Learn lessons in life, work, love and more with Channel 4’s Cathy Newman, as she shares inspiration and wisdom from some of the world’s most acclaimed and influential women. Newman’s latest book The Ladder: Life Lessons from Women Who Scaled the Heights & Dodged the Snakes is inspired by her show on Times Radio, and brings together discussions between women, from politician Nicola Sturgeon to scientist Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell and filmmaker Waad Al-Kateab.

It’s been 40 years since Arthur Scargill led the National Union of Mineworkers on one of the largest strikes in British history. Vilified by Margaret Thatcher’s government and eventually broken, Britain’s mining communities were changed forever. Academic Robert Gildea and husband-and-wife team Amanda Powell and Richard Williams reflect on the strike and its lasting impacts. Gildea’s Backbone of the Nation: Mining Communities and the Great Strike of 1984–85 explores mining communities from South Wales to Fife, drawing on interviews with miners and their families for this groundbreaking new history. Gildea is Professor Emeritus of Modern History at the University of Oxford. Powell and Williams both reported on the strike when it happened, and revisit it in their book Coal and Community in Wales. Award-winning journalist Powell’s account of key events and press photographer Williams’ striking images offer an in-depth look at life in the South Wales coalfield before and after the strikes.

A middle-aged dentist with dreams of being an artist can’t stop painting mouths; a tortured Imam is in a romantic entanglement with a local vicar; an octogenarian mourns the death of the husband she thought she knew and a troubled teenager’s nudes have been leaked on the internet. Hear Nathan Newman discuss their book How to Leave the House, in which tenderness, wit and humour are found in the stories of a disparate group of characters, centred around a young man waiting for the extremely embarrassing package he ordered to arrive. Newman is a writer and filmmaker based in London whose short stories have been published in literary journals in the US and university anthologies in the UK. They talk to the internet’s resident librarian, Jack Edwards.

Bring your best ideas to this solutions-focused workshop session. Facilitated by sustainability entrepreneur Andy Middleton and joined by key speakers to be announced, we’ll look at the key issue of health, discussing the scale of the issue and a range of solutions.

Speakers include remarkable individuals leading climate and biodiversity resilience projects, igniting hope and progress in their neighbourhoods and the wider community. We want you to share your ideas and to be inspired by those making a difference. Be part of the change in this two-hour thought laboratory.

This year’s Christopher Hitchens Lecture is delivered by Matt Frei, lead presenter of Channel 4 News’ award-winning global coverage. Frei takes an in-depth look into America, analysing whether and how the country can still be saved from itself. His book Only in America chronicled the presidency of George W Bush, and he has interviewed five American presidents, including Trump. While based in the US he presented the BBC Radio 4 programme Americana.

Colm Tóibín reunites us with the heroine of his 2009 novel, Brooklyn, in his sequel Long Island. We find Eilis Lacey 20 years on, in the 1970s, living with her husband, Tony Fiorello, and children on Long Island, rather too close to her Fiorello in-laws. A shocking piece of news propels Eilis back to Ireland, to a world she thought she had long left behind and to ways of living, and loving, she thought she had lost. Tóibín is the current Laureate for Irish Fiction. His previous novels include The Master, The Testament of Mary and House of Names. His work has been shortlisted for the Booker multiple times, and has won both the Costa Novel Award and the Impac Award. He talks to Hay Festival President Stephen Fry.

Join WOW (Women of the World) founder Jude Kelly for an evening of optimism, determination and laughter, exploring the exasperating and confusing journey towards gender equity, covering everything from money, sex, race and food to ageing. Extremely and equally suitable for men!

WOW is a network of arts festivals that celebrate the achievements of women and girls as well as highlighting the obstacles that face them. It was founded by Kelly, former Artistic Director of London’s Southbank Centre, in 2010.

Historian Corinne Fowler brings rural life and colonial rule together, sharing the ways in which the British Empire transformed rural lives, offering opportunity and seeking exploitation. She shows how the booming profits of overseas colonial activities directly contributed to enclosure, land clearances and dispossession in the UK, and how these histories continue to have an impact. Fowler’s most recent book is Our Island Stories: Country Walks through Colonial Britain, and she is Professor of Colonialism and Heritage in Museum Studies at the University of Leicester. She co-authored the 2021 National Trust report on its country houses’ historical links to the British Empire, and is also author of Green Unpleasant Land: Creative Responses to Rural England’s Colonial Connections. She talks to Oscar Guardiola-Rivera, author and Professor of Human Rights and Political Philosophy at Birkbeck University, London.

There are no problems that cannot be improved by eating cheese. Fact. The award-winning comedian and International Cheese Judge guides us through the subtle art of pairing the best cheeses with a fine whine of your choosing, so whatever your whinge there’s cheese to match. Brigstocke is one of our most talented, versatile comedians, mixing satirical state-of-the-nation gags with top rate observational humour, killer impressions and important content about dairy produce.

Self-avowed ‘internet sensation’ Josh Berry comes to Hay Festival for the first time to deliver his specific brand of character and impressions-laden stand-up comedy. He reflects on his journey from being born in Crewe to becoming a fully fledged member of the Guardian-reading North London ‘wokerati’.

After being called a beta male last year, Berry is eager to explore the topic of masculinity and reflect on what place that concept has in the modern world, especially given the fall of Andrew Tate and the many crying meltdowns of Jordan Peterson on Twitter. He cannot wait to spend most of the set making fun of the audience for things that also apply to him.

“A remarkable new talent” – Rob Brydon.

N.B. The posh bashing will likely be interspersed with some more polite routines about the tennis.

NATO this year marks its 75th anniversary, and discussions around its purpose, achievements, faults and usefulness have never been louder. Journalist Peter Apps takes a look at the history of NATO, from the Korean War to the pandemic, the Berlin and Cuba crises, and the chaotic evacuation from Kabul.

Peter Apps is global defence correspondent for Reuters news agency and is currently on sabbatical as executive director of the Project for Study of the 21st Century (PS21). Apps reported from Sri Lanka during the civil war between the government and Tamil Tiger rebels. In September 2006, he broke his neck in a minibus crash while covering the conflict, leaving him largely paralysed from the shoulders down. He returned to work in a wheelchair nine months later, using voice recognition software to resume his writing career. Of the 20 or so countries he has reported from, more than half have been since the injury.

Join the alto saxophonist for an evening of uplifting music. Whether playing a proud role in his local Leicester community, lending his talents to perform for the city’s first Black mayor George Cole or paying homage to his Afro-Caribbean roots with songs charged with the righteous energy of reggae music, musician and spoken word artist Marcus Joseph aspires to be an instrument of change.