Friday 29 November 2024

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.

Prepare to be enthralled as historian Jonathan Dimbleby takes you on a journey through 1944, the year that sealed the fate of the Nazis. In conversation with fellow historian David Olusoga, Dimbleby discusses his new book Endgame 1944: How Stalin Won the War. The year is probably best known for the Allies’ triumph on the beaches of Normandy, but Dimbleby takes readers beyond this to the events on the Eastern Front in 1944 that delivered the knockout blow in the Second World War.

Dimbleby discusses with Olusoga how previously untranslated German and Russian sources, many from ‘ordinary’ soldiers, helped him tell the story of 1944, and gives an insight into some of the bloody battles along the Eastern front and the unusual roles played by deception, the partisans, and the war within a war in Ukraine. Dimbleby's previous books include the highly acclaimed Second World War histories The Battle of the Atlantic and Destiny in the Desert: The Road to El Alamein, which was shortlisted for the Hessell-Tiltman Prize and was followed by his BBC2 programme Churchill's Desert War.

The winter months don’t mean an outdoor space can’t be a source of comfort and solace, as Caroline Quentin argues in this event. The actress, drawing on her life-long passion for gardening, talks to Tamsin Westhorpe about the joy she gets from spending time in her garden, whether she’s grappling with the best way to grow plants and vegetables or raising seeds in her potting shed.

Quentin shares stories from her lifetime of gardening – from thieving blackbirds to singing to dragonflies – and shares tips and tricks that can be used all year round. Known for her roles in TV shows including Men Behaving Badly, Bridgerton and Jonathan Creek, Quentin is the author of Drawn to the Garden, a collection of stories, advice, recipes and poems about her love for gardening. Westhorpe is the editor of the Horticultural Trade Association magazine and curator and gardener of Stockton Bury Gardens, Herefordshire.

Once upon a time not very far from now, two children come home to find a line of wet red paint encircling the outside of their house. But this is no predictable fairytale. Instead, it’s the start of the electrifying new novel Gliff by Ali Smith, one of Britain’s best contemporary writers.

Smith, the winner of awards including the Orwell Prize and the Women’s Prize, often plays with form and structure in her books, and continues her innovative storytelling in Gliff, which is the first of two new interconnected novels.

In the book, the question of what the red paint means leads to a discussion of a toxic world, hostile states, resistance and, above all, how humans make meaning. Join Smith for an insight into the world of Gliff, which nods to dystopian fiction and the Kafkaesque, and is a new take on the notion of classic. Smith talks to artist and filmmaker Sarah Wood.

Using a crystal ball to see into the future may not be possible (or even reliable), but there are ways to work out what might happen in the coming years and decades. In this engaging event Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter takes us through how we can all use data to understand risks and assess the chances of what might happen in the future, informing us about how the principles of probability can be used to think about everything from medical advice and climate change forecasts to football results. Offering a path through at a time of uncertainty, Spiegelhalter presents an authoritative and accessible discussion of data.

Spiegelhalter is the author of The Art of Uncertainty and The Art of Statistics. He is Emeritus Professor of Statistics at the University of Cambridge and was knighted in 2014 for services to medical statistics. He served as president of the Royal Statistical Society and in 2020 became a non-executive director of the UK Statistics Authority.

There’s no better way to get into the festive spirit than by attending the Hay-on-Wye Christmas lights switch on. Take part in an evening of carol singing, grab a warming mulled wine and some food, and enjoy the festivities that kick off the Christmas season in our booktown. The lights will be switched on at 6.30 pm by Luke Evans, star of the West End and Hollywood.

The free switch-on event takes place in Memorial Square, and as well as food and drink stalls, visitors can enjoy the Hay School Christmas fete, a steam engine Santa drive-by, Hay Fire Brigade, Santa's Post Box, Window Spotting competition, and more. The event is co-hosted by Hay Town Council, Hay Chamber of Commerce and Hay Markets Ltd. Lighting up Hay for Christmas is made possible through the generous support of Hay's local businesses, individuals and funders.

A year is a long time in US politics, and 2024 is a extraordinary demonstration of this adage; the year has been full of unexpected events and historic firsts, including the conviction of Donald Trump for the falsification of business records and Joe Biden stepping down as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee after a disastrous debate performance.

As we enter 2025, the UK will have to forge a new kind of special relationship with the Oval Office. What will this look like with a vastly changed USA? How will international events, from wars to movements in trade and the shift to the political right, affect the way the UK and US stand together (or not)? And what does the shifting axis of world power and influence mean for us all? Join Matt Frei, lead presenter of Channel 4 News’ award-winning global coverage and a panel of experts and front row commentators to explore just what the UK’s place in the new world order could look like.

Get the best view of the Christmas lights from the viewing platform at the top of Hay Castle’s historic Norman tower, and watch the switching on with castle director Tom True.

Champagne and canapés included in the ticket price

In this intimate event, actor Luke Evans takes us from his humble beginnings in a quaint Welsh mining village to the dazzling lights of Hollywood, where he starred in some of the biggest films of recent years. Evans grew up in the Rhymney Valley, south Wales, in a Jehovah’s Witness family. He felt different from an early age, and as he came to terms with his sexuality, he faced a difficult and uncertain path that he knew could lead him away from his community.

With tenderness and courage, Evans shares how he decided to leave his home and his religion aged just 17, and gives a behind-the-scenes glimpse of his stage and screen career.

Evans has told his full story in his memoir Boy From the Valleys: My Unexpected Journey, which recounts in detail how he discovered his passion for singing, acting and performing. Starring first in the West End in productions including Miss Saigon, Avenue Q and Rent, he went on to secure roles in blockbuster films such as The Hobbit, Beauty and the Beast and Fast and Furious. He has also released music and recently starred in Echo 3 on Apple TV+. Evans is in conversation with Welsh broadcaster, media personality, and writer Carol Vorderman.

Gifted organist and composer Father Richard Williams, former vicar of St Mary’s Church in Hay, performs a stunning live accompaniment to Fritz Lang’s classic 1927 silent film Metropolis, playing the outstanding Bevington organ. Metropolis is an early science fiction film which presents a highly stylised futuristic city where a cultured Utopian society exists above a bleak underworld populated by mistreated workers.

Get ready for an evening of laughter with comedian Jenny Eclair, as she tells the story of how she elbowed her way into the male-dominated world of 1980s stand-up. Born little Jenny Hargreaves to Major Derek Hargreaves (maybe a spy, maybe not) and June Hargreaves, Eclair went on to become one of the UK’s most successful comedians. She shares tales of drama school, punk poetry and not really having a clue about anything, and gives an insight into the changing face of women in comedy. Whether she’s discussing the frivolous or the serious, Eclair does so with a sharp insight and, of course, a big helping of humour.

Eclair was the first woman to win the UK’s top comedy award, the Perrier Award. Since then, she has taken multiple shows on tour around the country, most recently Sixty! (FFS) which was extended twice due to its popularity. Eclair is also an actress, and is known for her starring role on BBC1’s Grumpy Old Women, which ran for three series and was then adapted into four live shows touring across the UK and Australia, all of which she co-wrote and starred in. She is the co-host of the Older and Wider podcast, and the critically acclaimed author of seven novels, a collection of short stories and a number of non-fiction books. Her latest book is Jokes, Jokes, Jokes: My Very Funny Memoir.

In Yoruba culture, newborn babies are welcomed into the world, and ushered into the social fabric, through naming ceremonies filled with songs of praise. The names bestowed communicate where the baby has come from – the circumstances of its birth, the atmosphere in the home – and where its future will take it. Join poet Theresa Lola as she shares poems from her second collection, Ceremony for the Nameless, and discusses the act of naming and how it shapes us. Asking questions about the realities of being both Nigerian and British, tracing the lineages of names, and considering why some people deserve to be named while others are treated as though invisible, Lola conjures up a world of words conveying the diasporic experience.

Lola is a poet and writer from South London. She served as the Young People’s Laureate for London from 2019-20, and her poem ‘Equilibrium’ was added to OCR’s GCSE English Literature syllabus in 2022. Lola was featured in the ‘Forces for Change’ issue of British Vogue as a next generation talent.