Hay Festival 2014

Come and listen to this year’s celebrated Hay Festival Writers at Work. This thrilling 2025 group of ten Welsh writers will share new fiction and poetry, in English and Cymraeg.

A BBC Radio 3 lunchtime concert series marking the 150th anniversary of Maurice Ravel’s birth. This last of three recitals recorded for broadcast explores the music of Ravel and others. The Kleio Quartet – Juliette Roos (violin), Katherine Yoon (violin), Yume Fujise (viola) and Eliza Millett (cello) – perform a programme including Ravel and Alice Smith.

Programme:

Alice Smith String Quartet in E ‘Tubal Cain’

Maurice Ravel String Quartet in F

Howzat? Having lost the inaugural Hay Festival Cricket Match 2024 on the last ball, the Hay Festival All-Star team returns to face its nemesis – the local Hay Town team – umpired once again by actor and author Stephen Fry.

The Authors Cricket Team has a 100-year history with the likes of PG Wodehouse, AA Milne and Arthur Conan Doyle stepping up to bat. More recently, the team has played against IPL players, the Vatican and the national teams of Japan and Iceland. Hay Festival Global is teaming up once again with The Authors to put out a side of writers and actors, with the odd professional cricketer filling in…

This year’s team features historian Tom Holland, actor Paterson Joseph, former England Captain Ebony Rainford-Brent, and authors Charlie Campbell and Adam Rutherford, with more names to be announced. The Hay Festival All-Stars will battle it out against the mighty Hay Town team captained by John Sly. Who will be victorious?

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first female ascent of Mount Everest, join Everest summiteers Jo Bradshaw, Tori James (first Welsh woman) and Rebecca Stephens (first British woman), alongside adventurer researcher Jenny Hall and historian Kate Nicholson on a slightly less challenging walk.

From Hay we’ll climb to atmospheric Mouse Castle Wood, home to ancient oaks and site of an unfinished motte-and-bailey earthwork, consisting of a rock boss with an artificially scarped vertical side. The castle was held by the de Clanowe family in the 14th century. We’ll return across undulating fields to Hay.

Join the Paralympic champion, Strictly Come Dancing star and You Can Do Anything! author for an empowering and inspirational discussion with former Paralympic athlete Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson about finding your happiness, chasing your dreams and being unstoppable. Jonnie will take us on a journey to get inspired, build confidence, overcome setbacks and learn that we can achieve anything, no matter what our abilities or ambitions might be.

A double Paralympic 100-metre sprint champion, Jonnie won gold and set the Paralympic record at the age of 19 at the London 2012 Olympics, going on to win gold again, and smash his own record at the Rio Paralympics in 2016. He was the first disabled contestant to compete on Strictly Come Dancing and is passionate about challenging and changing other people’s perceptions around disability.

Magic and sparkle with a bit of bite… The author of the Isadora Moon and Emerald and Mirabelle series gives a very special introduction to Isadora Moon Rides a Bike, with interactive readings, draw-alongs and lots of behind-the-scenes secrets from Isadora’s world.

The series celebrates difference from the unique perspective of our favourite half vampire, half fairy. Isadora can fly and do magic, but there’s one thing she has never tried, and that’s riding a bike. Luckily, her mum and dad and best friend, Zoe, are eager to help. Can she overcome her fears and learn to ride a bike after all…?

Please bring your own sketchbook and pencils to this event.

Enjoy a twenty-minute open air performance between events with Feast of Fools, an a cappella quartet from the South West of England singing traditional and contemporary folk songs.

As the first Muslim to serve in a British cabinet, there are few people better placed than Conservative peer Sayeeda Warsi to reflect on the position of Muslims in the UK, and the rising tide of Islamophobia they face. Discussing her book Muslims Don’t Matter, Baroness Warsi looks at the far-right riots that broke out in the UK in 2024, how more hatred has been directed at Muslims in public life during the war on Gaza, and how a network of media and commentators feed Islamophobia. She urges us to change course and unite to dismantle this toxic bigotry.

Warsi is a lawyer, businesswoman and racial justice campaigner. She was instrumental in the launch of Operation Black Vote, a national not-for-profit working towards greater racial justice throughout the UK. Rachel Shabi has reported extensively on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She is author of Off-White: The Truth About Antisemitism.

The future is uncertain. The future is full of danger. The future is a risk. But there is hope in the future too, for us and the generations after us. Social geographer Danny Dorling and climate activist Rob Hopkins discuss how we should navigate life now to mitigate the effects of the crises we are facing, from the cost of living to climate change, and how we should rethink the future.

Dorling is author of The Next Crisis, in which he unpacks the data on what people really think about when they consider the future. He is the 1971 Professor of Geography, and advises the government and the Office for National Statistics.

Hopkins is co-founder of the international Transition Network movement, which aims to reimagine and rebuild the world. His forthcoming book How to Fall in Love with the Future looks at how we change the world.

Dive into the thrilling life of Raymond Chester, the Oakland Raiders legend. During the 1960s, while America was convulsed following the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King, Chester was making historic changes that brought Black American football into the mainstream. From his college glory at Morgan State to his iconic moments on the NFL field, Chester’s story is one of resilience and triumph which resonates far beyond the world of sport and proves the significance of sport in our social and political lives.

Welsh author and rugby fan Jon Gower’s Raider is based on extensive conversations and interviews with Chester himself – a love-letter from Wales to an American football icon whose legacy transcends the game.

The author of The Lamplighters introduces her suspenseful new novel. The Sunshine Man is the story of a terrible crime that shakes a community, and of a revenge plotted over decades.

Birdie Keller wakes up one freezing January morning to hear that her sister’s killer has been freed from jail. Birdie leaves for London with a pistol and a plan: to find this man and make him pay. She’s been waiting two decades to get him, biding her time: here, at last, revenge. But Jimmy Maguire, the man she’s after, knew Birdie a long time ago, in a life she’d sooner forget. They’ve got history, and he isn’t the only one with a secret.

Come and listen to this year’s celebrated Hay Festival Writers at Work. This thrilling 2025 group of ten Welsh writers will share new fiction and poetry, in English and Cymraeg.

Fee Mak shares her career journey – from her start as a professional ballet dancer with the Royal Ballet School through to becoming a national BBC Radio broadcaster, and her love for literature which has led to her chairing events at leading UK literature festivals.

Join Fee in this workshop-style event, one of this of a Hay Festival series of sessions delivered by inspiring producers and practitioners from the creative industries, giving their insights, experience and advice on progression in their field.

Please bring your own notebook and pen to this event.

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.

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.