Hay Festival 2014

Every Saturday morning, tens of thousands of people across the world gather to walk, run and jog 5km around their local parks. ParkRun has taken off worldwide. But before Paul Sinton-Hewitt founded ParkRun, he was struggling to hold his life together, having lost his successful career, with a marriage that had broken down and a devastating injury that threatened to cut him off from the running club which had been his lifeline.

Sinton-Hewitt talks about coming up with the simple idea of a Saturday morning free weekly run, how it instilled him with connection and purpose, and how it grew from 13 runners in its first week to a ten million strong community across five continents.

We are living through a Long Emergency: a near-continuous train of pandemics, heatwaves, droughts, resource wars and other climate-driven disasters. Two great thinkers at the intersection between politics and everyday life share their thoughts on possible bulwarks against despair.

Adam Greenfield is Senior Urban Fellow at the LSE Cities centre of the London School of Economics. In Lifehouse, he asks what might happen if the tactics and networks of care and local power that spring up in response to climate disasters were brought together in a single, coherent way of life. Danny Sriskandarajah is CEO of progressive thinktank the New Economics Foundation. In Power to the People he presents a blueprint for how we can make a difference through greater community engagement, and how we can deliver a society that works for the many and not the few.

Malcolm X is a titanic figure in political history, but also one of the most misunderstood. Forever known as the violent Yin to Martin Luther King’s Yang, since his death he has been co-opted into the American project and marginalised by decades of governments, academics and activists. But on the centenary of his birthday, in a world shaken by decades of injustice and racism, Malcolm’s political mission is more urgent than ever.

In conversation with poet and actor Connor Allen, Kehinde Andrews – the UK’s first professor of Black Studies, at Birmingham City University – reveals Malcolm's real revolutionary programme. Malcolm’s activism was his philosophy, and paying attention to it reveals the true cultural icon – who, if he were alive today, would tell us to pick up the mantle and overturn this system for good.

Booker-longlisted debut novelist Yael van der Wouden talks to bestselling author Tracy Chevalier (Girl With a Pearl Earring) about twisted desire, histories and homes in The Safekeep.

Fifteen years after the Second World War, and Isabel has built herself a solitary life of discipline and strict routine in her late mother’s country home, with not a fork or a word out of place. But all is upended when her brother Louis delivers his graceless new girlfriend, Eva, at Isabel’s doorstep – as a guest, there to stay for the season… In the sweltering heat of summer, Isabel’s desperate need for control reaches boiling point. What happens between the two women leads to a revelation which threatens to unravel all she has ever known.

The Platform is a new space for young, emerging artists to share their work with Hay Festival audiences. Spanning a diverse range of art forms, The Platform aims to elevate and develop outstanding creative artists at the start of their careers. BBC Radio broadcaster Fee Mak hosts this session, where you can discover and support some of the best young talent working in the UK today.

Award-winning filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki (Le Havre, The Other Side of Hope) makes a masterful return with Fallen Leaves, a timeless, hopeful and satisfying love story that won the Jury Prize at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.

Set in modern day Helsinki, the film tells the story of Ansa (Alma Pöysti) and Holappa (Jussi Vatanen), two lonely souls whose chance meeting at a local karaoke bar is beset by numerous hurdles. From lost phone numbers to mistaken addresses, alcoholism and a charming stray dog, the pair’s path to happiness is as bittersweet as it is ultimately delightful.

Shot through with Kaurismäki’s typically playful, idiosyncratic style and deadpan sense of humour, this tender romantic tragicomedy is both a loving tribute to the filmmaker’s beloved contemporaries and a timely reminder of the potency of movie-going from one of cinema’s living legends.

“Gorgeous… A heartfelt cinephile ode to the possibility of love” – Little White Lies

Light. Darkness. Power. Magic. Join YA author and TikTok personality Andy Darcy Theo as he talks about his publishing journey and epic Descent into Darkness series. From BookTok to Bookshop, Andy shares the inspiration behind The Light That Blinds Us and his publication journey. He’ll offer top tips for aspiring writers and walk you through an interactive quiz to find out your elemental power! Andy Darcy Theo is a BookToker and Bookstagrammer and has been documenting his author journey as @andydarcytheo.

Reena from Bollywood Dreams Dance Company will teach you some dynamic moves in this fun Bollywood dance workshop. You’ll learn hand gestures, some technique work and choreography. By the end of the session you’ll have formed a fun Bollywood routine to take away and show your friends!

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.

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.

Five innovative garden designers bring their unique vision to mitigating the effects of climate change, encouraging biodiversity and boosting well-being.

Tayshan Hayden-Smith created the Grenfell Garden of Peace following the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire tragedy. Harry Holding is an environmentally conscious landscape and garden designer who won the RHS People’s Choice Award 2023 and RHS Feature Garden 2024. Eelco Hooftman is a landscape architect who has taught at the School of Landscape Architecture at Edinburgh College of Art. Anna Liu is an architect with over 15 years’ experience in art and landscape in Taiwan, Japan, China, USA and UK. Ann-Marie Powell is a broadcaster and designs gardens for private clients, companies and charities.

Hayden-Smith, Holding, Hooftman, Liu and Powell have created ‘The Community Garden’, ‘The Food and Medicine Garden’, ‘The Botanic Garden’, ‘The Garden Square’ and ‘The Family Garden’ respectively for the British Library’s new exhibition Unearthed: The Power of Gardening.

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.

In 1975, Japanese mountaineer Junko Tabei became the first woman to summit Mount Everest. On the 50th anniversary of the climb, join our panel to celebrate her achievement, highlight the lives of women who have often been overlooked in the history of climbing, and explore the untold stories of women who are part of Everest’s legacy.

Jo Bradshaw summited Mount Everest in 2016. Dr Jenny Hall is researching the experiences of contemporary and historical adventurers and is a contributing author to Other Everests, exploring the wider social and cultural history of the mountain, one hundred years after the tragic 1924 British Everest expedition. Tori James was the first Welsh woman to climb Everest, aged 25. Historian Kate Nicholson is a historian and has written Behind Everest, about Ruth Mallory, whose husband George died on his third attempt to scale the mountain. Rebecca Stephens became the first British woman to climb Everest in 1993.

Gain a new understanding of the British Empire and its enduring entanglement with the Anglophone Caribbean with historian Imaobong Umoren, in conversation with actor and author Paterson Joseph. In her book Empire Without End, Umoren starts with European contact with the Caribbean and ends today, looking at the impact and legacies of racial slavery through to the end of colonialism, and its replacement with neo-colonialism.

Umoren is an associate professor of International History at the London School of Economics where she specialises in histories of racism, women and political thought in the Caribbean, Britain and US in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Empire Without End received the 2020–21 British Library Eccles Centre and Hay Festival Writer’s Award.

The Platform is a new space for young, emerging artists to share their work with Hay Festival audiences. Spanning a diverse range of art forms, The Platform aims to elevate and develop outstanding creative artists at the start of their careers. BBC Radio broadcaster Fee Mak hosts this session, where you can discover and support some of the best young talent working in the UK today.

Few jewellers are as celebrated globally as Cartier. Glamorous, witty and beloved by stars from Elizabeth Taylor and Andy Warhol to Grace Kelly, their iconic pieces – such as the Tank watch, Love bracelet and Trinity ring – each reflect the spirit of their moment in time.

Cartier is a major V&A 2025 exhibition featuring precious jewels, historic gemstones, iconic watches and clocks that chart the evolution of Cartier’s legacy of art, design and craftsmanship since the turn of the 20th century. The accompanying book Cartier explores the history of Maison Cartier, described as the ‘Jeweller of Kings and the King of Jewellers’ by King Edward VII.

Senior Curator of Jewellery Helen Molesworth discusses Cartier’s signature style and its embrace of progress and modernity.

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.

Actress (The Good Place, She-Hulk, Legendary), activist and feminist-in-progress Jameela Jamil shares thought-provoking, vulnerable and often hilarious stories that will leave you feeling empowered and uplifted.

The former C4 and BBC Radio presenter exploded into the podcasting sphere with I Weigh, exploring issues surrounding mental health, body image and activism with a diverse range of guests including Jordan Stephens, Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda. Jamil founded Move For Your Mind in 2023, aiming to democratise fitness and place emphasis on exercising for your mental health instead of the endless pursuit of fitting into toxic beauty standards.

Weigh in on the debate with Jamil and discover how to celebrate progress over perfection, to encourage better mental health, healthier body image and more.

Sports writer Sam Peters and former rugby player Alix Popham talk honestly and critically about sport’s approach to head injuries.

Popham is a retired international rugby player, with 33 caps for Wales. He retired in 2011 and in April 2020 was diagnosed with probable CTE and early onset dementia as a result of traumatic brain injury suffered in his rugby career. He and Peters explore the growing evidence linking sports-related concussions to premature deaths and dementia, and speak with first-hand knowledge about campaigning on the issue.

Peters is a rugby writer who has been credited with driving cultural change to sport’s attitude towards head injuries and concussion. His books include Broadside with England cricketer Stuart Broad. They speak to respected Welsh broadcaster Lauren Jenkins, who has brought us live coverage of some of Welsh rugby’s biggest stories

How can we better understand how the far right operates? Ask the filmmaker whose documentary screening was pulled amid fears of a mobilisation against it. Ask the geneticist who broke the story of American money funding the re-emergence of eugenics. Ask the undercover journalist who spent a year masquerading as an extremist named Chris.

Havana Marking is a British documentary filmmaker known for finding the human stories that reflect the large geopolitical picture. Her latest film is Undercover: Exposing the Far Right. Adam Rutherford lectures in Genetics and Society at UCL. His books include How to Argue With a Racist and Control: the Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics. Harry Shukman’s Year of the Rat is an urgent exposé that follows the Hope Not Hate researcher and reporter on a nail-biting year undercover infiltrating far-right groups in the UK.

They discuss the far right and its work to dismantle our democracy with Jennifer Nadel, co-founder of think tank Compassion in Politics.

North, south, east and west. Almost all societies use the four cardinal directions to orientate themselves, so they should be clear-cut. But Jerry Brotton is here to tell us different: the four compass points are more subjective and various than we might realise.

Brotton talks about his new book, the discoveries he made about how different societies – modern and primitive – feel about the compass points, and argues that they only have meaning, literally and metaphorically, depending on where you stand.

Brotton is Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary University of London. He is a regular broadcaster and critic as well as author of books including A History of the World in Twelve Maps.

The Platform is a new space for young, emerging artists to share their work with Hay Festival audiences. Spanning a diverse range of art forms, The Platform aims to elevate and develop outstanding creative artists at the start of their careers. BBC Radio broadcaster Fee Mak hosts this session, where you can discover and support some of the best young talent working in the UK today.

On the centenary of Malcolm X’s birth, WritersMosaic, in collaboration with the British Library Eccles Institute, brings together writers and performers to explore his global legacy as a resistance leader, with music from Tony Njoku.

“If you’re black you were born in jail,” said Malcolm X, the Black nationalist spokesman for the Nation of Islam, who was reviled by white America during the Civil Rights era. He argued there’d be no peace for “blue-eyed devils” (white people) without a reckoning for the sins of the past. And after his assassination in 1965, many African Americans viewed him as a prophetic revolutionary whose fierce strategy of opposition “by any means necessary” was adopted by the Black Panthers. Malcolm X’s spirit of resistance increasingly speaks to people worldwide emerging from the oppression of colonialism and dictatorships.

The acclaimed latest film from Luca Guadagnino (Challengers, Call Me By Your Name), Queer is a lush, sensuous adaptation of William S Burroughs’ cult novel, featuring a deeply moving and mesmeric central performance from Daniel Craig.

1950. William Lee (Craig), an American expat in Mexico City, spends his days almost entirely alone, except for a few contacts with other members of the small American community. His encounter with Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), an expat former soldier, new to the city, shows him, for the first time, that it might be finally possible to establish an intimate connection with somebody.

Written by Justin Kuritzkes (Challengers), scored by Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, and realised with impeccable production design, imagery and Jonathan Anderson’s sumptuous costumes, Queer is a sensuous 1950s romance of desire and longing. Craig was nominated for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama at the 2025 Golden Globes.

“Luca Guadagnino meets William S Burroughs on the iconoclast’s own slippery terms and the result is mesmerising” – The Hollywood Reporter

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.

The original People’s Poet comes storming out of the gate to share his uproarious new poetry collection. James Brown, John F Kennedy, Jesus Christ: nobody is safe from the punk rocker’s acerbic pen – and that’s just the first poem.

Don’t miss this opportunity to hear the dazzling, scabrous voice of Dr John Cooper Clarke for yourself – it’s reverberated through pop culture for decades, his influence on generations of performance poets and musicians plain for all to see. WHAT is his most trenchant collection of poems yet, vivid and alive, and eclectic as only a life as varied and extraordinary as Cooper Clarke’s could summon. He talks to journalist Miranda Sawyer.

In this explosive new docu-thriller, nominated for BAFTA Best Single Documentary, anti-racist investigators and their secret cameras reveal the tactics of the modern far right. As the UK reels from 2024’s racially motivated riots, Undercover shows how vulnerable communities are targeted, racist ideas are mainstreamed and money sought from powerful elites.

Featuring the extraordinarily brave Harry Shukman, his handler Patrik Hermansen and the team at Hope Not Hate, we see the inspiring work that is being done to research, expose and stop the advance of populist forces. Things get very tense when the researchers discover a million dollar trail to Silicon Valley…

Directed by Havana Marking and produced by Natasha Dack in association with Marking Inc, Tigerlily, Channel 4, HiddenLight Productions and the BFI Doc Society.

The Platform is a new space for young, emerging artists to share their work with Hay Festival audiences. Spanning a diverse range of art forms, The Platform aims to elevate and develop outstanding creative artists at the start of their careers. BBC Radio broadcaster Fee Mak hosts this session, where you can discover and support some of the best young talent working in the UK today.

Don’t miss this screening of a documentary championed by Mark Kermode as “utterly remarkable and utterly life-affirming”. Charting the rise of a west London football club for young players with Down’s syndrome, Mighty Penguins follows coach Allan Cockram, the players of Brentford Penguins FC and their families as they prepare to be the guard of honour at a Premier League match.

A funny, illuminating film about the transformative power of sport and the many ways we can enrich each other’s lives, it has won numerous awards including the prestigious Grierson Award for best sports documentary in 2024.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Allan Cockram, a former professional footballer and founder of Brentford Penguins FC, and the documentary’s director Louis Myles.

The Breaks are Herefordshire’s most vibrant band, a collective of musicians, all hailing from the ‘Wild West’ of Hereford HR2. They’re a band on fire with a mission to build community and inspire action for positive change through the energy and vibes of their self-described ‘anarcho-soul’.

Playing in various combinations, with sometimes as many as ten musicians on stage – horns, multiple vocalists – The Breaks conjure up a potent brew of jazz-infused hip-hop and funk that draws on influences as diverse as Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Fugazi, Wu-Tang Clan, Sun Ra, Herbie Hancock, Ganja Krew, Minor Threat and Azalea Banks.

The Breaks have been kicking out the jams and cutting a blaze across the county, lifting audiences and carrying them along as they forge ever forwards. Transition, Community, Growing Local and the Abolition of Oppression are the pillars of The Breaks’ manifesto. ‘No pasarán’ (‘they shall not pass’) is their clarion call, joining them down the decades with the anti-fascists of the Spanish Civil War, raised fists aloft.

Come and join us in the late Georgian-Gothic setting of St Mary’s Church for a special screening of Anthony Asquith’s great 1929 classic silent movie A Cottage on Dartmoor, with live organ accompaniment by Father Richard Williams. The film is a psycho-thriller replete with obsession and jealousy, much influenced by German Expressionism, and is one of British cinema’s most highly regarded silent films, the last to be made in the silent period.

Father Richard’s film nights are renowned. The former Hay parish priest trained as a professional musician at Trinity College of Music, London. Don’t miss this chance to see him perform a live accompaniment on the Bevington organ.

Join Megan for a rejuvenating Fusion Flow yoga class designed to nurture your nervous system, enhance mobility and build core strength. Her thoughtfully crafted sessions are all about helping you feel revitalised, centred and ready to take on the world.

Megan will begin with mindful grounding and core-focused movements to awaken your inner strength; flow through a dynamic sequence that mobilises your joints, strengthens your muscles and deepens your connection to your body; and end with a deeply nourishing relaxation, leaving you refreshed and recharged.

Whether you’re seeking balance, strength or a moment of calm, this class is your opportunity to reconnect with yourself and move through your day with ease and vitality.

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.