Hay Festival 2025 Full Programme

BBC Radio 4: Café Hope

Rachel Burden and guests

Friday 23 May 2025, 5.30pm –  Exchange Marquee

In these uncertain times, we might all sit there and want things to change, but how many of us get off the sofa and try to make that change happen?

Rachel Burden brings BBC Radio 4’s virtual Café Hope to Hay Festival, welcoming special guests who have made a difference to their community and changed it for the better in big or small ways. You’ll be inspired hearing the highs and lows of how it all happened and their driving force.

At a time when the news we hear every day can leave us feeling hopeless, Café Hope celebrates amazing individual stories – a reminder that just one person can make a huge difference. Bring a brew and we’ll bring the hope.

Kitchen Garden Pizza & Wine Masterclass

Friday 23 May 2025, 6.30pm – 8pm –  Family Garden

Join our celebrated pizzaioli for an entertaining, hands-on workshop that will teach you everything that you knead to know about how to make pizzas. Since nothing complements pizza quite like a perfect glass of wine, let us pair and enjoy Italian wine together with your pizza creations.

This 90-minute session includes snacks, a 12” pizza of your own creation and complementary wine throughout. Dairy-free and gluten-free options available.

Mark Watson

Mortification

Friday 23 May 2025, 7pm –  Discovery Stage

Mark Watson is generally accepted to be alive. And yet he’s died many times. Not just on stage – though he’ll tell you about that – but in other ways, too. There’s been the death of a childhood dream. The death of his panel-show career. And then there was the time he died inside and nearly lost it all…

Revealing and painfully funny, Mark will tell us all about mortification, failure and the times life doesn’t work out as planned. But he also wisely questions whether the things we strive for – recognition, success, the approval of others – are really the things that matter. He might be talking about death, but he reminds us how to live.

Sponsored by GL Events UK

Simon Schama

The Holocaust, 80 Years On

Friday 23 May 2025, 7pm –  Wye Stage

In this year marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the last concentration camps, renowned historian Sir Simon Schama confronts the history of the Holocaust as not just a Nazi obsession, but as a European-wide crime.

For his recent BBC documentary The Holocaust, 80 Years On, Schama visited mass killing sites in Lithuania, the home of his mother’s family. He travelled to the Netherlands, famed for its long history of tolerance, and where he lived and worked as a young historian, to answer the question of why fewer Jews survived here than in any other Western occupied country.

At every step Schama leans into remarkable acts of resistance, the compulsion of ordinary Jews to document the unprecedented atrocities that were happening to them, in the hope they could never be denied. Showing clips and recounting the making of the documentary, he considers how the catastrophe has been represented on screen since the end of the war itself, and asks profound questions about what the Holocaust means now.

Daniel Kehlmann talks to Misha Glenny

The Director

Friday 23 May 2025, 7pm –  Meadow Stage

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.

John Kirkpatrick

In Concert

Friday 23 May 2025, 7pm – 8.15pm –  St Mary’s Church

An evening of traditional music and song from one of the most prolific performers and recording artists on the English folk scene. John Kirkpatrick is a singer and instrumentalist who has played in various bands, and is currently in Kirkophany, where he plays with his four sons.

In 1975 Kirkpatrick started the first group to concentrate exclusively on the Morris dances of the Welsh Border. With a radically different approach to the dancing, the Shropshire Bedlams caused quite a revolution in the Morris world, and nearly 50 years later, Kirkpatrick is still dancing and driving the team onwards.

In this live concert, he fills the room with an irresistibly joyful noise, topping his sparkling squeezebox playing with lusty vocals, all presented with lashings of wit and humour.

BBC Radio 4: The Adverb

Ian McMillan with Natalie Ann Holborow, Len Pennie, Michael Rosen and Alex Wharton

Friday 23 May 2025, 7pm –  Exchange Marquee

The Barnsley Bard Ian McMillan is joined by a veritable paean of poets for a special edition of BBC Radio 4's The Adverb: Michael Rosen has been praised for his “ability to address the most serious matters of life in a spirit of joy, humour and hope”; Len Pennie has won acclaim and admirers for her muscular use of the Scots language; Alex Wharton is currently Children’s Laureate Wales but he writes poems for everyone and his fans include racing driver Sir Lewis Hamilton who had one of Alex’s poems stitched into his Met Gala suit last year; and Natalie Ann Holborow who describes poetry as “a powerful and precious thread that runs through the tapestry of our lives”. With three poetry collections under her belt, the thread is strong in this one.

Join the audience for this Hay Festival edition of The Adverb – The Verb’s showcase of the best live poetry and performance.

Billy Ocean

In Concert

Friday 23 May 2025, 8.30pm –  Global Stage

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.

Want to support this event? Our event sponsorship packages include front row seats. For more information contact sponsorship@hayfestival.org

Jason Byrne

Stand-up: No Show

Friday 23 May 2025, 8.30pm –  Discovery Stage

There’s no show like a Jason Byrne No Show. No Show is a show with no comedy safety net. By the end of No Show you’ll have experienced a once in a lifetime show or No Show. Jason, along with the audience, will begin No Show with no show whatsoever. Witness Jason use his infamous audience interactions with a sprinkle of props, both on and off the stage, to create No Show!

The biggest selling comedian at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Jason’s inspired, original brand of high-energy intelligent lunacy ensures that there is no other comedian like him, and his sell-out shows have attracted accolades including the Perrier Newcomer Award Nomination and the Perrier Award Nomination. His television work includes Live at the Apollo (BBC One), Comedy Annual (ITV1) and The Channel 4 Comedy Gala (Channel 4).

Kate Wilson talks to Oliver Bullough

Disclosure: Unravelling the Spycops Files

Friday 23 May 2025, 8.30pm –  Wye Stage

Activist Kate Wilson took on the Metropolitan Police for breaching her human rights – and won. Wilson had a one-year romance with a man named Mark Stone in 2003, but years later discovered he was a married police officer, and part of a unit that infiltrated environmental groups, forming sexual relationships and spying without warrant on hundreds of innocent civilians. Hear Wilson talk to writer Oliver Bullough about how it took her nearly 20 years to uncover the eerie truth about Britain’s secret political police, and why her story and fight matter.

Florence Knapp talks to Joanne Harris

Debut Discoveries: The Names

Friday 23 May 2025, 8.30pm –  Meadow Stage

What’s in a name? And can a name change the course of your life? It can in Florence Knapp’s debut novel The Names, which spans 35 years and follows three alternate versions of protagonist Cora’s life after she visits the registrar and names her infant son. The Names looks at the ripple effects of domestic abuse, the ties of family and what it means to heal.

Knapp talks to Chocolat author Joanne Harris about the inspiration for her debut novel, the process of writing it and how she came up with three versions of Cora’s life.

Supported by the Hawthornden Foundation

Caroline O’Donoghue

Sentimental Garbage: Live

Friday 23 May 2025, 8.30pm –  Creative Hub

Join author Caroline O’Donoghue at Hay Festival as she hosts a live episode of her award-winning podcast Sentimental Garbage – a show that dives deep into the pop culture we love. The podcast celebrates the stories that women create, which are often undervalued, and has featured episodes about Nora Ephron, the high-street, cult-classic films and everything in between.

Bring your most beloved trash topics, the guilty pleasures you’re dying to see dissected, and O’Donoghue and a special guest will pick them apart live on stage. No topic too messy, no pleasure too guilty.

With over 11 million downloads worldwide, Sentimental Garbage has been called “exceptionally perceptive and funny” (The Times) and “full of humour, pace and sharp analysis” (The Irish Times). In its own words, Sentimental Garbage is a podcast not about knowing the most, but feeling the most.

Marcel Lucont’s Cabaret Fantastique

Friday 23 May 2025, 9.45pm –  Discovery Stage

Marcel Lucont (Comedy Central at the Comedy Store, Sky Atlantic’s Set List, BBC1’s John Bishop Show) presents a feast of international cabaret, coming to Hay Festival for one night only! Cabaret Fantastique has no fixed abode – a cult hit at festivals worldwide, each programme of entertainment is handpicked by Marcel. You’ll be served up a luscious plate of the finest performers from the world of cabaret, comedy, circus, poetry, magic and music, all held together with dry wit and a dry white.

The show has been a sell-out success at Soho’s Crazy Coqs for the past seven years, featuring a different line-up each night, and has been staged at London Wonderground and Glastonbury Festival among others. “Debaucherous, delightful and debonair, Marcel Lucont knows how to put on one hell of a show” PerthNow, Fringe World Festival.

Ivo Graham

Yardsticks for Failure

Friday 23 May 2025, 9.45pm –  Meadow Stage

The UK’s most apologetically posh comedian shares a deep dive into the various facepalms of his recent past, and a live diary of his unravelling present.

After coming last by quite a distance on Taskmaster Series 15, and seeing his emotional frailties laid bare in a series of memes of him with his head in his hands, Ivo Graham is adapting to an increasingly irreversible reputation as a man better known for his chaos than his comedy.

Longer-term resolutions of rest and relaxation can wait; in the meantime he’s trying to host the greatest club night of all time, run a Sub-3 marathon while pushing a wheelchair, and put his heart on the line in a show unlike anything he’s ever done before. Can these dreams become a reality, or will they just become more yardsticks for failure?

BBC Radio 4: The Today Programme

Emma Barnett and guests

Saturday 24 May 2025, 7am –  Exchange Marquee

Emma Barnett presents a special edition of BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme live from Hay Festival, including guests. This is your chance to see the inner workings of the BBC’s flagship morning news programme, covering everything from politics to nature; international news and sport to arts and culture. We’ll have the latest news, live guests from Hay-on-Wye, plus behind the scenes extras for our Hay Festival audience.

Effortless Flow: Mastering Transitions with Dav Jones Yoga

Saturday 24 May 2025, 8am –  Creative Hub

Start your day with an hour of effortless flow yoga movement. Dav will focus on mastering the basics of yoga pose transitions, with an emphasis on building strength, flexibility and mobility for a pain-free practice.

Whether you’re just starting out or have some experience, he’ll guide you through accessible flows that teach you how to move smoothly from one pose to the next. He’ll break down key transitions step-by-step, exploring the anatomical principles that support efficient movement. You’ll gain a deeper understanding of how to align your body to avoid strain and improve confidence in your practice. This class is perfect for beginners who want to build a strong foundation, as well as intermediates looking to refine their movement and feel more fluid and capable on the mat.

Beginners and experienced students are most welcome. Yoga mats are provided.

Please contact Clare Fry at hello@larchwoodstudio.com with any questions relating to these classes. As capacity is limited, we recommend booking in advance to avoid disappointment.

Please wear loose, comfortable clothing, and alert your practitioner at the start of class if you have any injuries.

Sound Bath

With Angie Brierheart and Hayley Holden

Saturday 24 May 2025, 9am –  Bookshop Garden Marquee

Whether you’re new to sound baths or a seasoned wellness enthusiast, this transformative experience is perfect if you’re seeking to reduce stress, enhance focus and nurture well-being. Using high-quality crystal bowls, each tuned to vibrational frequencies that align with your Chakra energy centres, the sound bath promotes relaxation, improved intuition, creativity and rejuvenation. As you lie comfortably, you are guided into a somatic meditation followed by the healing resonance of the crystal singing bowls, restoring balance, peace and harmony to your body, mind, spirit.

No prior experience is necessary. Bring a yoga mat and blanket, and get cosy. Not suitable for people with sound epilepsy, in the first trimester of pregnancy, with metal implants or severe mental illness.

BBC Radio 4: Saturday Live

Huw Stephens and Kiri Pritchard McLean with Stacey Dooley, GT Karber and Ruth Jones

Saturday 24 May 2025, 9am –  Exchange Marquee

Be in the audience as Huw Stephens and Kiri Pritchard McLean bring you remarkable stories live from Hay Festival. Their guests include author and Gavin and Stacey star Ruth Jones, and journalist and author Stacey Dooley, while Murdle puzzle master GT Karber reveals his mysteries. Plus, as always, they’ll have the Inheritance Tracks of one celebrity and a moment of gratitude from a listener in Thank Yous.

Discover Snodhill Castle

Saturday 24 May 2025, 9.30am – 12pm –  Meeting Place on Festival Site

Featured in the BBC’s Digging for Britain, Snodhill Castle is the hidden gem of the Golden Valley. Explore the Norman ruins in their medieval parkland setting, including the high keep, the newly conserved Royal Free Chapel site and wall walk, and the C15th ‘panic room’ with its fortified latrine chutes. Hear the story of its discovery and preservation, from an expert guide.

Please note: the site is uneven and slippery with steep drops. There is no wheelchair access and no facilities. Children should be supervised at all times. Interested dogs on leads are welcome.

In partnership with Snodhill Castle Preservation Trust

Alastair Campbell

But What Can I Do?

Saturday 24 May 2025, 10am –  Global Stage

Our world is a mess. It faces challenges that few are prepared to confront. It is littered with governments that lie, led by people who can’t or shouldn’t be allowed to lead. It’s no surprise, therefore, that so many of us feel angry, frustrated and let down. Yet we also feel overcome by such a sense of powerlessness that we find ourselves asking in despair, ‘But what can I do?’

That question is regularly posed to Alastair Campbell, not least in reaction to The Rest Is Politics, the chart-topping podcast he presents with former Tory Cabinet minister Rory Stewart. In this event, he provides the motivation and the tools to effect change for the better, provides advice on developing confidence and coping with criticism and setbacks, and sets out the practical steps by which we can become political players ourselves.

Mike Berners-Lee, Misha Glenny and guests

The News Review

Saturday 24 May 2025, 10am –  Wye Stage

Start the day at Hay Festival with headline guests chaired by editors from The Independent reviewing the news, discussing the headlines and issues of the day, and revealing what’s breaking and trending online. A fascinating look at what’s tickling the nation’s fancy – and driving it to splenetic fury. Bring your coffee!

Among today’s guests are sustainability researcher Mike Berners-Lee, professor in the Institute for Social Futures at Lancaster University and author of There is No Planet B, and geopolitics journalist Misha Glenny, author of McMafia which has been adapted into a major BBC1 drama series.

In partnership with The Independent

David Szalay talks to Naomi Alderman

Fictions: Flesh

Saturday 24 May 2025, 10am –  Meadow Stage

David Szalay introduces his propulsive and hypnotic novel about a man who is unravelled by a series of events beyond his grasp. Flesh follows István, a shy 15-year-old who soon becomes isolated at school and whose only companion is his married neighbour, a woman close to his mother’s age. Their clandestine relationship causes István’s life to spiral out of control. As he grows and moves from Hungary to London, entering the world of the super-rich, competing impulses for love, wealth and more threaten to undo him completely.

Szalay is the author of five previous works of fiction including All That Man Is, for which he was awarded the Gordon Burn Prize and Plimpton Prize for Fiction, and shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He talks to award-winning author and broadcaster Naomi Alderman.

Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason

To Be Young, Gifted and Black

Saturday 24 May 2025, 10am –  St Mary’s Church

When Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason’s eldest daughter, Isata, made her solo debut at the BBC Proms in 2023, she could not have been prouder. But it all fractured when her younger daughter came to her in tears a few days later, having read online abuse about her sister. Isata, it was declared, did not deserve to be there.

Kanneh-Mason explores what it’s like to come of age in these turbulent times, when Black artistic self-expression is so often met with disparagement and abuse online – and offers a hopeful, powerful way through. She has seven children, all of whom are world-class classical musicians, who have performed together and solo at major concert halls around the world.

Wayfaring Walk: National Parks and the Climate Emergency

Rhys Guevara and Liz Hutchins

Saturday 24 May 2025, 10am – 12.30pm –  Meeting Place on Festival Site

Guides from the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park lead a walk through the beautiful surrounds of Hay-on-Wye, discussing the impact of the climate emergency on national parks.

Hay-on-Wye is located within 520 square miles of beautiful landscape that makes up the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park. The National Park is driving change to bring about a sustainable future, meeting our needs within planetary boundaries. Their Hay Festival series of walks take you into the town’s local environment while offering the opportunity to learn more about the Park’s work and its treasured landscape.

Please wear appropriate footwear and outdoor gear.

In partnership with Bannau Brycheiniog National Park and sponsored by Inntravel

Short Film Screenings

Saturday 24 May 2025, 10am – 3pm –  MUBI Cinema

Watch a selection of short films, curated by MUBI, throughout the day. The day’s schedule will be listed each morning at the venue – pop along and take a look.

In partnership with MUBI

Andy Day and Steven Lenton

Dino Dad

Saturday 24 May 2025, 10am –  Discovery Stage

Enter the prehistoric world with children’s TV superstar Andy Day and bestselling illustrator Steven Lenton on a fantastic magical dino-tastic adventure! Get ready to sing, draw, laugh and learn about some incredible dinosaurs – and hear about Andy’s new book series Dino Dad, illustrated by Steven: a laugh-out-loud adventure about Ruby and her dinosaur expert dad who has a magic ammonite shell which takes them to an incredible island, full of dinosaurs.

Please bring your own sketchbook and pencils to this event.

Ready, Steady, Music! Workshop

Saturday 24 May 2025, 10am –  Creative Hub

Get your Hay day off to a brilliant start with our daily Ready, Steady, Music workshops! With different activities each day, these interactive, fun-filled sessions for mini musicians and their grown-ups will have you tapping sticks, roaring like dinosaurs, flying with unicorns, dancing with scarves, playing with parachutes and so much more. Come and meet our puppets, explore our range of instruments and listen to the beautiful sound of the cello.

Captivating young imaginations and creating lasting memories, these sessions offer a unique musical adventure. The perfect way to boost wellbeing, increase confidence, spark creativity and introduce children to the joy of music.

Supported by funding from the National Lottery through Arts Council England

Make & Take Crafting

Saturday Morning Session

Saturday 24 May 2025, 10am – 11.30am –  Make & Take Hub

An opportunity to get crafting! Activities differ every day, including everything from print-making to junk modelling with recycled materials. Get messy and creative in these interactive sessions delivered by artists and discover that your imagination is the only limit.

Book for the session and you can drop in at any point during the 1.5 hour duration. Accompanying adults: please stay in attendance at all times, but you do not require a ticket.

Director’s Breakfast Tour of Hay Castle

Guided Tour and Continental Breakfast with Tom True

Saturday 24 May 2025, 10am –  Hay Castle

Battles, borders, books and breakfast! Come and explore Hay Castle with its director Tom True, who will introduce the history and invite you to get to know some of the characters from the castle’s past. He’ll also talk about running Hay Castle for the past three years.

Coffee and pastry included in the ticket price. Meet in the Great Hall.

A Hay Castle Trust event

20th Century Welsh Artists Exhibition & Hay Castle Entry Ticket

Saturday 24 May 2025, 10am –  Hay Castle

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 for a year. Explore Matilda’s room, the castle’s costumes and cellars, and the Richard Booth Archive, and make your way right to the top for amazing views from the viewing platform.

This ticket allows you to visit the Castle at a time of your choice on the day selected, and also gives you entry into the 20th Century Welsh Artists exhibition on the second floor.

A Hay Castle Trust event

Kitchen Garden Pizza Workshop

Saturday 24 May 2025, 10am –  Family Garden

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.

Dairy-free and gluten-free options available.

Guided Tour of Hay Castle & Hay Castle Entry

Explore Hay Castle with a Tour Guide

Saturday 24 May 2025, 11am –  Hay Castle

Join us for an exclusive guided tour led by one of our passionate volunteer guides during Hay Festival 2025. Our knowledgeable guides will take you on a captivating journey through the castle, revealing tales of medieval knights, royal intrigue and the castle’s remarkable restoration. As you explore the castle you’ll gain unique insights into the lives of those who once called this place home. The tour also offers breathtaking views of the surrounding countryside, providing the perfect backdrop for your visit.

Guided tours run daily at 11am and 2pm. Tour price includes entry into the Castle for a year including the current exhibition: 20th Century Welsh Artists.

A Hay Castle Trust event