Hay Festival 2014

Sir Graham Brady has been the Chairman of the 1922 Committee since 2010. As the leader of the group with the power to choose a new leader of the Conservative Party, it is his hand that held the executioner’s axe over five consecutive Conservative Prime Ministers’ heads.

Cameron. May. Johnson. Truss. Sunak. Brady lifts the lid on some of the leadership battles that have defined British politics for a decade and a half. The last fourteen years have seen unprecedented turbulence at the centre of politics. From coalition to Brexit, Covid to Partygate, Trussonomics to the 2024 election, our government has never felt so fractured. And as Prime Ministers have come and gone, Brady has been at the heart of every leadership challenge, seeing all, but saying nothing. Until now. He talks to broadcaster Jane Garvey.

This year marks the tenth anniversary of landmark legislation in Wales requiring public bodies to consider the long-term impact of their decisions on social, economic, environmental and cultural well-being.

Our panel takes a look at the impact of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, in Wales and beyond, what successes and setbacks there have been, and how to move forward over the next ten years.

Jane Davidson is Pro Vice-Chancellor Emeritus at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and chairs the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission’s Wales Inquiry. She proposed the legislation when she was serving in the Welsh government. Kevin Morgan is Professor of Governance and Development in the School of Geography and Planning at Cardiff University. Jane Richardson is the Chief Executive for Amgueddfa Cymru (Museum Wales). Melusi Moyo is Climate Policy Officer at Bannau Brycheiniog National Park Authority.Derek Walker is Future Generations Commissioner for Wales.

The much-loved broadcaster and author (A Year of Living Simply, Where the Hearth Is), introduces her new collection of simple, sustainable recipes from her own kitchen table. Your tastebuds will tingle at the thought of her baba ganoush with flatbreads, apple, cheese & honey tart or chorizo, prawn & butter bean stew, rounded off with chocolate chip cookies or a delicious plum tarte tatin.

Along with her recipes, Humble shares inspiring stories from individuals who play a role in bringing food to our tables, from basket-weavers and apron-makers to blacksmiths and woodworkers, and from potters and glassblowers to fishermen and cheese-makers. She’s joined by artisan makers Alison Lea-Wilson and Jess Lea-Wilson of Halen Môn sea salt, a seasoning business known worldwide for its hand harvested sea salt, and Toria Whitfield, the creative force behind Field & Found, a hand-made clothing and workwear range.

Two women – one based on a real person, one imagined – are at the centre of Lucía Lijtmaer’s Cautery, a savage look at the cheap consolations of meme-ified faux feminism.

The novel follows a young woman whose life looks good from the outside, but who feels intensely unhappy and trapped in her relationship. Four hundred years earlier, another woman flees England for the Massachusetts Bay Colony, where she finds her fortune but discovers independence doesn’t mean freedom from the dangerous vanities of men.

Lijtmaer is a writer and cultural critic, and the curator of the festival of guerrilla and feminist culture, Princesses and Darth Vaders. She codirects, with Isa Calderón, the award-winning podcast Deforme Semanal on Radio Primavera Sound. in conversation with the writer Emma Jane Unsworth.

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.

The Hay Festival President weaves together the final fabulous threads of the tapestry he began in Mythos and continued in Heroes and Troy. The most famous heroic story of all time, Homer’s Odyssey is full of monsters, murder, maelstroms, gods, giants, wit, wisdom – and the most cunning hero of them all: Odysseus.

After ten years of war and the final fall of Troy, the victorious Greeks head home. Odysseus dreams of returning to his beloved wife and son. But sea god Poseidon has other plans for our hero. From titanic whirlpools to hypnotic sirens, and from seductive witches to jealous goddesses, Odysseus is tempted and tormented beyond any man’s endurance. Yet the lure of his family draws him, step by step, closer to home and his destiny.

A chance to hear novelist and playwright Hanif Kureishi – who will join us digitally – speak about the devastating fall which left him without the use of his limbs, and the effect it had on his creativity. Kureishi fell at home on Boxing Day in 2022, and spent the subsequent year in hospitals in Italy, before he returned home to London.

Unable to hold a pen but compelled to write during his time in medical care, he dictated his words to family members, and authored a series of dispatches from his hospital beds. These were shared on social media and online, and form part of his book Shattered. The author (on screen via digital link) speaks to journalist Rosie Boycott (present in person) about his experiences, and how his time in recovery awoke within him new feelings of gratitude, humility and love.

Grab a backstage pass to Britpop’s Greatest Hits. When Miranda Sawyer interviewed Noel Gallagher in 1995, his gag wishing Damon Albarn would die of AIDS became front-page news. The journalist and author explores that mid-90s moment when British music suddenly meant everything, when Jarvis Cocker became a national hero, Trainspotting was a global hit and fire-starting seemed like a good night out.

Travel back to the beating heart of the 1990s and relive the mad exhilaration of what it was like to hear Britpop – Oasis, Blur, Tricky, Pulp, Underworld, Manic Street Preachers, The Prodigy, Suede, Chemical Brothers, Garbage, Supergrass, Radiohead, PJ Harvey and more – for the very first time.

Sawyer discusses Uncommon People with writer and Guardian literary critic Chris Power.

She’s been called one of “the internet’s best left-wing thinkers” by the Spectator. Journalist and leading political commentator Ash Sarkar is a contributing editor of Novara Media, and regularly appears on panels including Question Time, The Moral Maze, Good Morning Britain and Jeremy Vine on 5.

In Minority Rule she exposes how a strategic misdirection of blame by real minority elites is keeping the majority divided, from how identity politics has been warped and weaponised, to how an epidemic of ‘microevent’ media coverage is poisoning our information environment and stoking fear and panic in society.

Winner of the Un Certain Regard prize at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival and nominated for 12 British Independent Film Awards, How to Have Sex is a vibrant and authentic depiction of the agonies, ecstasies and ride-or-die glory of young female friendship, from rising British filmmaker Molly Manning Walker.

Three British teenage girls go on a rites-of-passage holiday, drinking, clubbing and hooking up in what should be the best summer of their lives. As they dance their way across the sun-drenched streets of Malia, they find themselves navigating the complexities of sex, consent and self-discovery.

Captured with luminous visuals and a pitch-perfect soundtrack, Manning Walker’s directorial debut paints a painfully familiar portrait of young adulthood, and how first sexual experiences should – or shouldn’t – play out.

“It launches not one but two of the most promising talents to arrive in movie theatres for a long while. Writer and director Molly Manning Walker is the complete package... And the film’s star, Mia McKenna-Bruce, is a revelation” – The Observer

Neuroscientist Russell Foster and comedian Ruby Wax discuss one of the most important contributors to our health: sleep. The pair take a look at society’s obsession with getting the ‘perfect’ night of sleep, and why a one-size-fits-all approach to sleep doesn’t work, with Foster sharing popular theories about why we sleep and busting myths about how much sleep we need at different ages.

Foster and Wax also cover topics including sleep anxiety, the effects of not getting the sleep we need, and why good sleep is different for each person.

Foster is a circadian neuroscientist, studying the sleep cycles of the brain. He is author of Life Time, a book about the body clock. Wax is a mental health campaigner and comedian whose latest tour, I’m Not As Well As I Thought I Was, is based on her book of the same name.

We’re all getting poorer. What does that look like for British children and their life chances? Social scientist Danny Dorling’s highly original approach constructs seven ‘average’ children from millions of statistics – each child symbolising the middle of a parental income bracket. Born in 2018, when the UK faced its worst inequality since the Great Depression and became Europe’s most socially divided nation, these ‘children’ turned five in 2023, amid a devastating cost-of-living crisis.

Getting to the heart of post-pandemic Britain’s most pressing issues, Dorling asks: what do we miss when we focus only on the super-rich and the most deprived? Who are today’s real middle class? And how can we reverse the trends leaving all children worse off than their parents?

Dorling is the 1971 Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford. His books include Inequality and the 1% and All That is Solid.

In conversation with Jane Davidson, Pro Vice-Chancellor Emeritus at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and the author of #futuregen: Lessons from a Small Country.

Join some Wise, Witty and Wonderful Women for a celebration of 75 years of Woman’s Hour, featuring personal stories, humorous observations and a strong opinion or two. Author Una McCormack, Woman’s Hour presenter Jane Garvey and comedian Sara Pascoe.

For 75 years, the BBC Radio 4 programme has brought us the most iconic and inspirational women from all over the world, delving into their lives and opinions, desires and lessons to others. McCormack’s Woman’s Hour: Daily Meditations from Wise, Witty and Wonderful Women brings together fresh insights, alternative perspectives and daring ideas from remarkable women, including Rosamund Pike, Jacqueline Wilson, Nina Simone, Annie Lennox, Toni Morrison, Philippa Perry, Sandi Toksvig, Malala Yousafzai and Emma Thompson.

Writers Meg Clothier and Dan Richards examine the fascinating worlds of the shipping forecast and nocturnal adventures on land and sea in this lively discussion.

Clothier’s The Shipping Forecast celebrates a century of the essential, though also soporific, BBC Radio 4 broadcast that keeps us in tune with the gloriously fickle British weather. She explores our maritime history, from stormy weather up above to the seabed far below, and from fishing boats and battleships to the songs and poems inspired by the forecast.

Richards (host of BBC Radio 4’s Only After Dark) leads us on an exploration of the night – the nocturnal world, insomnia, the people and services that keep the modern world safe and moving, and the creative potential of the dark hours. His Overnight: Journeys, Conversations and Stories After Dark seeks out and celebrates the workers, wildlife and stories of the night.

Start your day with some thoughtful, dynamic vinyasa yoga where the emphasis is on mindful alignment, focusing on each individual and your experience of a pose. Sequences encourage considered movement, using both active and passive ranges of motion to explore and enhance your strength and mobility.

Expect carefully designed flow sequences, where joints are stabilised and muscles engaged, your body moving with your breath to enhance concentration and aid meditation. Jess offers modifications and extensions to make her classes as accessible as possible, giving you the agency to choose how deep to move within your practice.

You’ll be encouraged to tune in to your body and breath, using your practice as a conduit to self-enquiry and a chance to learn what your body and mind can do, both on and off the mat. A keen practitioner of yoga for two decades, Jess has been trained by some of the most respected and experienced teachers in the world, including Adam Husler, Jason Crandell and Bridget Woods Kramer.

Open level – some experience useful but both 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.

Agronomist Jonathon Harrington and vet Barney Sampson lead a tour of Trevithel Court, David and Catherine James’ traditional mixed farm with orchards supplying apples for Bulmers, Westons and other cider producers in Herefordshire and Wales. Walk among the apple trees and learn about cider production; look inside a beehive and learn how bees make honey and store it for the winter, and why they are so essential for pollination. You can sample some of the cider and honey produced on the farm. See the quality beef cattle fed with the grass and arable crops grown on the farm and the machinery used for crop production and harvesting. Trevithel Court is run by David James in partnership with his son Will James, the fourth generation of the family to farm here.

With thanks to David & Catherine James and family for welcoming us to their farm.

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 Paralympic athlete and presenter Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson and award-winning comedian Sara Pascoe, host of BBC2’s Great British Sewing Bee and author of Sex Power Money.

Author James Cahill considers art, artists and selling out in this discussion with Hay Festival President Stephen Fry. Cahill’s new novel The Violet Hour follows Thomas Haller, who has achieved the kind of fame that most artists only dream of, but the vision he presents of being an untouchable genius at the top of his game is a lie.

On the eve of his latest show, the luminaries of the art world gather. But a chain of events begins that will lead the friends back into the past, to confront who they have become. The Violet Hour exposes the unsettling underbelly of the art world, asking questions about who is granted admission and who is left outside.

Cahill has worked in the art world and academia for 15 years. His debut novel, Tiepolo Blue, was shortlisted for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award.

Do you know a grubber from a yorker? Can you identify the golden rules of slip and outfield catching? How does a batter recover from the dreaded royal duck? And where on earth do players find room for all those teas?

Cricket legend and Test Match Special commentator Ebony Rainford-Brent talks to science communicator Adam Rutherford about her career, shares behind-the-scenes insight from the game, and leads a whirlwind tour of cricket.

Rainford-Brent is a cricket legend and multi-award-winning TV presenter and broadcaster. She was the first Black woman to represent England at cricket and paved the way for greater inclusivity in the game. She is a regular commentator on Test Match Special for the BBC and Sky.

English was a marginal dialect in the late ninth century, spoken by just a couple of hundred thousand. So how did it become the most common language in the world, spoken by 1.6 billion people today? Sir Rupert Gavin charts the evolution of English, and argues that it is ideal as the global language, not just by accident of history, but by fundamental construction and constitution.

Gavin has been a central figure in the UK’s cultural, historical, media and business worlds for the last 40 years. He has held senior roles at companies including British Telecom, Odeon Cinemas and Historic Royal Palaces. He is currently chairman of the English National Ballet, and the cinema chain The Living Room Cinema, and has produced or co-produced over 200 theatre shows.

Guides from the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park lead a walk through the beautiful historic environment of Hay-on-Wye.

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.

Ever wondered what donuts get up to when they’re not being eaten? No, because that would be silly! But it turns out, donuts have BIG PLANS FOR WORLD DOMINATION! Meet Sprinkles, the leader of the Squad; Jammyboi, who spreads stickiness everywhere; and Spronky, who is bizarrely unconventional. But don’t mention the arch-nemeses of the donuts… the bagels, secretly plotting Donut Squad’s doom!

Cartoonist and writer Neill is creator of the award-winning Mega Robo Bros series and How to Make Awesome Comics. Guffaws are guaranteed in this event about his super sweet and scrumptiously silly new graphic novel – perfect for lovers of Bunny vs Monkey and Dog Man.

Please bring your own sketchbook and pencils to this event.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Draw your sabre and take on friends and family for the Hay Festival fencing crown in this have-a-go session with Fencing Cymru/Welsh Fencing. Learn the skills of this fast-paced Olympic sport in a safe and friendly environment before stepping onto the piste – en garde!

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.

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.

One hundred years after his birth, what is Richard Burton’s legacy? Mr Burton, the 2025 biopic starring Harry Lawtey, Toby Jones and Lesley Manville, fictionalises the early life of the beloved Welsh actor. Set in 1940s Port Talbot, the film tells the extraordinary true story of the relationship between a schoolmaster named Philip Burton and a wild young schoolboy, Richard Jenkins, who dreamed of becoming an actor. Mr Burton recognised his pupil’s raw talent, and made it his mission to fight for him, becoming his tutor, strict taskmaster and eventually his adoptive father…

The film’s director Marc Evans, producer Ed Talfan and screenwriters Tom Bullough and Josh Hyams discuss the Welsh acting Titan and the making of their production, showing clips from the film.