Saturday 30 November 2024

Battles, borders, books and breakfast! Come and explore Hay Castle with its director Tom True, who will give an introduction to 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 two years.

We’ll take three vowels and five consonants, please. And they form just one word: politics. Mathematics legend and former Countdown star Carol Vorderman has been using her platform to speak out against the political elite in recent years – describing herself as ‘an old bird with an iPhone’ – and has plenty of advice to offer on how we can all participate in politics.

Talking to broadcaster and historian David Olusoga, Vorderman discusses what happens now that the Conservatives are out of power, and how issues that plagued the Tories run deep and are still part of our political system.

She argues for a new age of accountability, and shares some of the tools needed to build a better and fairer Britain, as well as discussing her own political journey, the abuse she faces for speaking about politics, and why politics really is for us all. Vorderman is a Welsh broadcaster, media personality, and writer. In 2000 she was awarded an MBE for services to broadcasting and has since turned her attention to maths education. She is the author of Now What?: On a Mission to Fix Broken Britain.

Travel 6,000 years into the past and explore the Neolithic period in Wales with Dr George Nash. The academic takes a look at chambered tombs and monuments across the country, and gives a greater understanding of these enigmatic and spiritual sites.

Nash is an associate professor at the University of Coimbra, Portugal, and an honorary researcher within the department of archaeology, classics and Egyptology at the University of Liverpool. Nash has directed excavations at many Neolithic burial-ritual monuments and is the author of numerous books on the Neolithic and prehistoric and contemporary rock art, including Neolithic Tombs of Wales.

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.

Enjoy a little frivolity with an open air performance by the Brecon-based choir The Nonsense Singers, whose songs are inspired by the Nonsense Alphabets of poet and artist Edward Lear.

Lear’s alphabet verses are the perfect size and shape for rounds and ditties, and have been set to music by the choir’s leader, jazz musician Rod Paton. This fun and frolicking performance will be supported by the original improvisations of cellist Sonia Hammond and various other jazzy instruments.

There’s no time of year better for a bit of comfort eating than the cold, dark days of winter. A simple dish of beans and toast recalls childhood memories. A hearty soup warms us from the inside out. A rich hot chocolate gives us a moment of calm. Restaurant critic Grace Dent knows the value of comfort food for our bodies and minds. Talking to writer Oliver Bullough, she looks at what makes great comfort food and the foods we like to eat when no one is watching. Sharing her own favourites, Dent discusses what food can tell us about our lives, memories and experiences, and why we can find such joy in eating by ourselves.

Dent’s latest book Comfort Eating is inspired by the award-winning podcast of the same name, and is an intimate collection about the food we turn to behind closed doors, featuring interviews with people including Jo Brand, who loves fried bread sandwiches, and Scarlett Moffat, whose go-to snack is Wotsits-topped beans on toast. Dent is a columnist, broadcaster and author and the Guardian’s restaurant critic. Her memoir Hungry won the 2021 Fortnums Debut Book Award.

Can we live forever? What would it mean for our bodies and minds if we did? How would society be affected if we just gave up death? And if the science is available, what is really stopping us? Join neuroscientist Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnston as he explores these questions and more with expertise and compassion, drawing on his book The Future Loves You: How and Why We Should Abolish Death.

Zeleznikow-Johnston argues that preserving a person in stasis for future revitalisation and repair could be the logical extension of our current medical practices, and shows us that credible procedures already exist for storing not just the body but the self. He also takes a look at the philosophical and social questions around living forever, addressing worries about overpopulation and social stagnation as well as the meaning of life. Dr Zeleznikow-Johnston is a neuroscientist at Monash University, Australia, where he investigates methods for characterising the nature of conscious experiences.

Packed with drawing, comics, reading aloud in silly voices and lots of laughter, this interactive workshop gives children a chance to tap into their creativity and imagination.

Kids will get to create their own knight character before helping The Brothers McLeod write a comedy adventure.

The Brothers McLeod are author, screenwriter and voice actor Myles McLeod, and illustrator, animator and director Greg McLeod. Together they created the Knight Sir Louis series of funny books for children, the latest of which is Knight Sir Louis and the Cauldron of Chaos.

Singing is good for our mental health and this half-hour open air performance between events will make you feel like you’re part of a whole. Come along and have a listen as Hay Community Choir share their joy in music.

Have you ever wanted to talk to animals? In this entertaining and original event, wildlife filmmaker Tom Mustill reveals how conversing with whales – and understanding what they’re saying – might not be such a crazy notion. Mustill was whale watching in 2015 when a humpback breached onto his kayak and nearly killed him. He became obsessed with trying to work out what the whale had been thinking, and while making a film about his experience discovered that cutting-edge developments and discoveries mean asking the whale what happened might not be beyond the realm of possibility. Mustill discusses the technologies and scientists who are working to turn the fantasy of Dr Dolittle into a reality, and looks ahead to how making contact could change our approach to the natural world.

Mustill is a biologist turned filmmaker and writer. His film collaborations, many with Greta Thunberg and David Attenborough, have received numerous international awards.

He talks to presenter of Inside Science and co-host of the Science in Action podcast Marnie Chesterton.

Tucked into the Welsh valleys and encircled by silver birch and pine is the village of Cwmcysgod, a quiet and sleepy place. But all is not as it seems in Alex McCarthy’s novella The Unbroken Beauty of Rosalind Bone: there are simmering tensions in Cwmcysgod, where a unique cast of characters gives voice to their version of the truth, and of the story of Rosalind Bone. McCarthy introduces the world of Cwmcysgod and characters including 16-year-old Catrin Bone and her embittered and reclusive mother, Mary, whose sister disappeared from the village in a shroud of shame years before.

McCarthy was born in Cardiff and grew up in South Wales. An alumna of London Contemporary Dance School, she worked as a dancer and choreographer for a number of years on stage, TV and film. The Unbroken Beauty of Rosalind Bone won Wales Fiction Book of the Year 2024.

She talks to author and previous Wales Book of the Year winner Caryl Lewis.

Come along and join Cantorion-Y-Gelli for some good old-fashioned Welsh “hwyl”! Cantorion-Y-Gelli is Hay’s mixed-voice, Welsh-language choir set up by musical director Gemma Woolford, who gathered a group of friends together after the last lockdown to learn one Welsh song.

The majority of members are either learning Welsh or passionate about the language, with three first-language Welsh-speakers keeping a strict ear on pronunciation. Cantorion-Y-Gelli has a varied repertoire of traditional folk songs, hymns, male voice choir classics and even a football anthem.

In this illuminating and intimate event, Baroness Lola Young sheds light on the oft-ignored foster care system, and her personal relationship with it. Before Baroness Young was an actress, an academic, an activist and a campaigner for social justice, she was a foster child, moved between countless placements and children’s homes between the ages of eight weeks and 18 years. Decades later, the crossbench peer was able to begin the search for answers to the long-standing questions that would help her make sense of her childhood.

She talks to actor and writer Paterson Joseph about searching through her care records, fragments of memory and her imagination to assemble the pieces of her past into a portrait of a childhood in a system that often made her feel invisible and unwanted.

Baroness Young of Hornsey became one of the first Black women members of the House of Lords in 2004. She is an active campaigner against modern slavery and unethical fashion and is Chancellor of the University of Nottingham. Joseph is a British actor and writer who has acted on shows including Vigil and Noughts and Crosses. He is the author of the historical novel The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho.

Listen in awe to the extraordinary tale of how writer and political advisor Chloe Dalton befriended a hare after moving to the countryside of her childhood. Dalton moved from the city to the country during lockdown, and found a newly born hare, no bigger than her palm and with no one to look after it. So she took it upon herself to be the custodian of the hare, bottle-feeding it and giving it a home in her house. Two years later, it still ran in from the fields when Dalton called it, and took naps in her house.

Dalton speaks to Hay Festival’s Director of Programmes and Engagement Helen Bagnall about the unusual bond between her and the hare, rekindling our sense of wonder towards nature and wildlife.

Packed with drawing, comics, reading aloud in silly voices and lots of laughter, this interactive workshop gives children a chance to tap into their creativity and imagination.

Kids will get to create their own knight character before helping The Brothers McLeod write a comedy adventure.

The Brothers McLeod are author, screenwriter and voice actor Myles McLeod, and illustrator, animator and director Greg McLeod. Together they created the Knight Sir Louis series of funny books for children, the latest of which is Knight Sir Louis and the Cauldron of Chaos.

In Paula Hawkins’ fourth thriller The Blue Hour, a small bone at the centre of a famous sculpture is revealed to be human, and three people become intimately connected by the secrets and lies that put it there. Set on a Scottish tidal island connected to the mainland for just a few hours each day, and home to only one inhabitant, The Blue Hour asks questions of ambition, power, art and perception.
Hawkins discusses her novel with Julia Gillard, former Australian prime minister, chair of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, and host of A Podcast of One’s Own.

Hawkins worked as a journalist for 15 years before writing her first novel The Girl on the Train, which has sold more than 23 million copies worldwide. Published in over 50 languages, it was adapted for a hit film starring Emily Blunt. Paula’s thrillers Into the Water and A Slow Fire Burning were also instant number one bestsellers.

Packed with drawing, comics, reading aloud in silly voices and lots of laughter, this interactive workshop gives children a chance to tap into their creativity and imagination.

Kids will get to create their own knight character before helping The Brothers McLeod write a comedy adventure.

The Brothers McLeod are author, screenwriter and voice actor Myles McLeod, and illustrator, animator and director Greg McLeod. Together they created the Knight Sir Louis series of funny books for children, the latest of which is Knight Sir Louis and the Cauldron of Chaos.

Enjoy a half-hour open air performance between events. A crew of local landlubbers singing rollicking, traditional sea shanties in a cappella three-part harmony, as well as other songs on a nautical theme. Enjoyment is guaranteed or else you’ll walk the plank!

Hay Shantymen have been together for over seven years, raising more than £10,000 for the RNLI. They’ve performed widely, including Latitude and Falmouth International Shanty Festival. In 2023 they wrote a shanty of their own (‘Seaweed Revolution’), performed at the Natural History Museum in London.

In the arguments between opposing political parties, the fractious nature of Prime Minister’s Question Time, and the lack of sympathy for the struggles of everyday people, it can seem that compassion has disappeared from politics altogether. Join MPs Torsten Bell and Jess Phillips as they examine where politics and politicians have failed people and how being compassionate is linked to success and a better politics for everyone. Tackling hard-hitting questions, the pair present a hopeful and optimistic view of the future, as well as looking at the lessons that Wales can impart to the national stage.

Bell, who was elected as the MP for Swansea West in 2024, is the author of Great Britain? How We Get Our Future Back, a forensic examination of Britain’s current chaos, and a bold vision for an alternative. He is the former chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, an economic research charity working to raise the living standards of households on low to middle incomes.

In Phillips’ Let’s Be Honest, she looks at how politics lost its integrity, and how we’ve all suffered as a result. It is both a laugh-so-you-don’t-cry takedown of the state of Westminster in recent years and a rallying battle cry for bringing truth back to politics. Before becoming an MP, she worked with victims of domestic violence, sexual violence and human trafficking. Phillips was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Home Office in 2024. They talk to barrister and journalist Jennifer Nadel, leader of UK think tank Compassion In Politics.