Hay Festival Winter Weekend 2024

Glyn Edwards recites from and discusses his collection In Orbit, which examines grief, loss and toxic standards for boys and men. Narrated by a man who receives news of a beloved teacher’s death, In Orbit covers the man’s past, present and future, all of which seem to be punctuated by the same intense grief. Edwards’ collection is a deeply moving account of losing a person you love, but not shying away from remembering them.

Edwards works as a teacher in North Wales and is a PhD researcher in ecopoetry at Bangor University, considering the role of poetry as activism in the wake of the Anthropocene. He is a contributing editor for Modron, a journal for environmental writing, and the Wild Words feature for North Wales Wildlife Trust. He is a former winner of Wales’ Teacher of the Year, and has created educational resources for the Welsh Government, the WJEC and Poetry Wales. In Orbit won the People’s Choice Award at the Wales Book of the Year 2024 Awards Ceremony, run by Literature Wales.

Spend a raucous night out in the company of Jim and Nancy Moir, as they share their weird and wonderful adventures of tracking down birds so Jim can paint them. Under the name Vic Reeves, Jim is one of the UK’s best known and most successful comedians. But since leaving behind the comedy persona that made his name, Moir has spent his time focusing on a passion from childhood: birds, and creating beautiful paintings of them. Moir shares his excitement about painting birds with his wife Nancy, and the pair’s hit television show Painting Birds with Jim and Nancy Moir is about to be commissioned for its third series. Join the couple for this exclusive event as they give an insight into their adventures tracking down and painting birds of all kinds and tell stories about the lives of our feathered friends. Moir and Nancy speak to publisher John Mitchinson of Unbound, which has published Moir’s paintings in the books Birds and More Birds.

Moir is most famous for his work as Vic Reeves alongside Bob Mortimer, with TV shows including Vic Reeves Big Night Out, The Smell of Reeves & Mortimer, and the comedy quiz show Shooting Stars. He is also a successful artist and he exhibits regularly around the world.

Nancy is an actress and television presenter, best known for her roles in Love Actually, Catterick and Painting Birds with Jim and Nancy.

Cellist Maxim Calver first gained public recognition as a BBC Young Musician 2018 Grand Finalist and Strings Category winner, where he made his concerto debut with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Since the competition he has been in high demand as a soloist across the UK and Europe.

Hear him play a programme that includes Bach’s much-loved Cello Suite No.1 in G major, Gaspar Cassadó’s 1926 Suite for solo cello, which combines traditional Spanish dance rhythms with elegant, fluid melodic passages reminiscent of French style, and a rare performance of George Crumb’s Sonata for Solo Cello from 1955.

Legend has it that Hay Castle was built in a day by a giantess called Matilda who hurled a stone across the Wye at the end of construction. Find out about this story and more with this entry ticket that also allows you to visit the castle as many times as you like in the year afterwards. Explore Matilda’s room, the castle’s costumes and cellars, and the Richard Booth Archive, and make your way right to the top for the amazing views from the viewing platform.

This ticket also gives you entry into the Beasts, Battles & Books exhibition, a look at the work of one of Britain’s best-loved illustrators, Quentin Blake.

Rangers from the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park will lead a walk through the beautiful surrounds of Hay-on-Wye. Local experts will give their insights into this ancient town and treasured landscape. Please wear appropriate footwear and come prepared for the weather.

Pet-obsessed comedian, presenter and chart-topping podcast host Russell Kane presents a high-energy children’s comedy show about his favourite thing: ANIMALS!

Based on his hilarious new children's animal guide Pet Selector!, there will be jokes, props, pets and an animal-matching-game that answers important questions on family animal-care. Both funny and full of facts, Kane’s show will stretch kids’ imaginations. The idea for Pet Selector! was born out of a conversation with Kane’s daughters about animal-care and picking their next pet.

Kane is an award-winning comedian, presenter, podcast host, writer, author, animal-lover and multiple-pet-owner. As well as his sold-out comedy tours and frequent TV work, Kane’s BBC Sounds podcast Evil Genius has quickly become a flagship show. He published a novel as well as a memoir about his dad called Son of a Silverback.

Join comedian Shaparak Khorsandi and musician Jordan Stephens for a humorous, life-affirming and honest conversation about self-discovery and taking care of yourself and your mental health. Khorsandi and Stephens discuss difficult topics with warmth and openness. The pair will discuss their memoirs, how fame affected their approach to mental health, and how they have fostered a healthier outlook by embracing both the negatives and positives in their lives. Khorsandi’s book Scatter Brain recounts how she was finally diagnosed with ADHD in her 40s, enabling her to look back on her life with a new lens and make sense of everything from her attraction to toxic men to her regular bouts of burnout. Khorsandi has become a fixture on our TV screens, making appearances on shows such as Mock The Week and Live at the Apollo.

Stephens found fame in his teens and 20s as one half of musical duo Rizzle Kicks, but with that came a pattern of self-harm, hedonism, destructive coping mechanisms and heartbreak. He tells his story in Avoidance, Drugs, Heartbreak & Dogs, which also looks at what it means to be a modern man, advocating for vulnerability and openness. Stephens’ mental health campaign #IAMWHOLE reached over 120 million people online and was mentioned in the Houses of Parliament.

Rangers from the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park will lead a walk through the beautiful surrounds of Hay-on-Wye. Local experts will give their insights into this ancient town and treasured landscape. Please wear appropriate footwear and come prepared for the weather.

Spend a joyous and healing hour in the presence of vet Noel Fitzpatrick, as he shares stories of some of the extraordinary dogs he’s treated, and their connections with their humans.

In his latest book, Dogs and Their Humans: Stories of Healing and Hope from the Supervet’s Surgery, Professor Fitzpatrick marks the funny and uplifting, and occasionally heartbreaking, connection we have with our canine friends, and the hope that all those who visit him for help display.

Professor Fitzpatrick is a world-renowned neuro-orthopaedic veterinary surgeon. He is best known to the general public as the Supervet from the popular Channel 4 television series.

Globally recognised for his innovative surgical solutions for animals, Professor Fitzpatrick has developed dozens of new surgical techniques and implants, including world-firsts, that have provided hope where none seemed possible. He talks to scientist and broadcaster Adam Rutherford.

Take a peek inside the mind of Hay Castle’s Storyteller in Residence, Tom Bullough, as he talks about his creative process and his innovative new project, Tarddle/Source. Bullough tells Hay Castle director Tom True about how life has changed since his book Sarn Helen won the 2024 Wales Book of the Year award and also introduces Tarddle/Source, an audio-visual project which follows the River Wye from the Wales-England border to its source in the Cambrian Mountains, recording the stories, hopes and concerns of the people of the Wye Valley. Bullough will screen extracts from the project and consider the role of story in addressing the climate and nature emergency.

Tarddle/Source will be hosted by Hay Castle from January 2025.

Be swept away by actor Rupert Everett’s first collection of short stories, which take readers from a chaotic and emotional funeral to Paris to an L.A. talent agency via a middle-aged Russian countess confronting sex and age in a Cotswold teashop. Everett speaks to author, comedian and classicist Natalie Haynes about The American No, discussing his inspirations and process, and diving into how the wealth of film and TV ideas he’s created over his career have fed into the collection.

Everett shot to fame with the film Another Country in 1984 and has been a hugely successful actor and writer for many years. His films include Napoleon, My Policeman, Adult Material, The Name of the Rose and Funny Woman. His stage work includes playing Oscar Wilde in David Hare’s The Judas Kiss, for which he won the WhatsOnStage Award for Best Actor in a Play and was nominated for an Olivier Award. His first memoir, Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins, was a Sunday Times bestseller and its sequel, Vanished Years, won the Sheridan Morley Prize for Biography. His film of Oscar Wilde’s last years, The Happy Prince, was released in 2018 to widespread acclaim.