box office: 01497 822 629
Book tickets online, by phone with the Box Office number above, or in person at the Festival Box Office at The Drill Hall in Hay. Box Office open 9am–5pm and until late during the Winter Weekend.
Click here to see a list of sold out events
Please note - There will be no Q&A session at this screening
Event 33 • Thursday 1 December 2011, 8pm •
Venue: Richard Booth's Bookshop
Owen Sheers’ Resistance opens in wartime 1944: after the failed D-day landings, a German counter-attack lands on British soil. Within a month, half of Britain is occupied. Film starring Michael Sheen and Andrea Riseborough.
Film: UK 2011: 92 minutes: PG
This event has taken place
Please note - There will be no Q&A session at this screening
Event 31 • Friday 2 December 2011, 7pm •
Venue: Richard Booth's Bookshop
Owen Sheers’ Resistance opens in wartime 1944: after the failed D-day landings, a German counter-attack lands on British soil. Within a month, half of Britain is occupied. Film starring Michael Sheen and Andrea Riseborough.
Film: UK 2011: 92 minutes: PG
This event has taken place
Event 1 • Friday 2 December 2011, 8pm till late •
Venue: The Granary
Test your wits and general knowledge with rounds on 2011, Fact or Fiction, Town & Country, Lives & Loves, plus picture and music rounds. Teams of four, or just come along and join in. Points mean prizes…
Price includes cawl, bread, mince pies and mulled wine. One ticket admits one person.
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Please note - There will be no Q&A session at this screening
Event 32 • Friday 2 December 2011, 9pm •
Venue: Richard Booth's Bookshop
Owen Sheers’ Resistance opens in wartime 1944: after the failed D-day landings, a German counter-attack lands on British soil. Within a month, half of Britain is occupied. Film starring Michael Sheen and Andrea Riseborough.
Film: UK 2011: 92 minutes: PG
This event has taken place
Event 2 • Saturday 3 December 2011, 10am–3pm •
Venue: Parish Hall
Explore the writing and crafting of short stories with Horatio Clare, then get hands-on with formatting and style under the expert guidance of Paul Thomas (BWA Design). You’ll leave having created a completely unique book from start to finish. Bring a packed lunch.
12+ years
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Puzzles, Problems and Perplexing Posers
Event 3 • Saturday 3 December 2011, 11am •
Venue: Community Centre
Ball of Confusion, from Johnny Ball’s slot of the same name on Zoe Ball’s radio 2 show, will bend your mind in places it’s never been bent before. Can you keep up?
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Event 4 • Saturday 3 December 2011, 11am–1pm •
Venue: Richard Booth's Bookshop
From finger print robins to glittering garlands, Booth’s will be bursting with all kinds of fun and festive things to make and do. Pop in at any time across the morning for face-painting and competitions too!
Drop in, for families, all ages
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Letter Writing Workshop
Event 5 • Saturday 3 December 2011, 11am–1pm •
Venue: Richard Booth's Bookshop
Writing letters? Who does that any more? Drop in and join Amnesty International to write a letter that will change someone’s life.
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Event 6 • Saturday 3 December 2011, 11am •
Venue: Community Centre
Join us in this special cookery session for little chefs, as we bake delicious Christmas Gingerbread using local ingredients.
5–10 years. Children must be accompanied.
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Jamrach’s Menagerie
Event 7 • Saturday 3 December 2011, 12.30pm •
Venue: Community Centre
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2011, this epic novel brings alive the smells, sights and flavours of the nineteenth century, from the docks of London to the storms of the Indian Ocean.
More about Jamrach's Menagerie...
Young Jaffy Brown never expects to escape the slums of Victorian London. Then, aged eight, a chance encounter with Mr Jamrach changes Jaffy's stars. And before he knows it, he finds himself at the docks waving goodbye to his beloved Ishbel and boarding a ship bound for the Indian Ocean. With his friend Tim at his side, Jaffy's journey will push faith, love and friendship to their utmost limits.
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Event 8 • Saturday 3 December 2011, 12.30pm •
Venue: Community Centre
Join us in this lovely cookery session for little chefs, as we bake yummy Christmas Gingerbread using local ingredients. using local ingredients.
5–10 years. Children must be accompanied.
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The Book Of Time
Event 9 • Saturday 3 December 2011, 2pm •
Venue: Community Centre
Philosophers, scientists and religions have tried to explain time as everything from a perfect cycle to ever-increasing chaos. From the Ancient Indian ghati to the latest atomic clock, Adam explores measuring time and time travel. Make time to join him.
More about The Book of Time
In The Book of Time we see how philosophers, scientists and religions have tried to explain time as everything from a perfect cycle to ever-increasing chaos. We see how time works in the natural world and in our own bodies and minds, and how we've tried to measure it – first with calendars, then with increasingly sophisticated devices, from the Ancient Indian ghati to the latest atomic clock. And from Aristotle to Einstein, we explore how time has been essential for scientists in their quest to understand the universe and everything in it. Not forgetting the deliciously weird world of time travel, explaining what is fact and what is fiction. This is the kind of book that you can dip into or read in depth – but either way we promise time will just fly by...
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Event 10 • Saturday 3 December 2011, 2pm •
Venue: Richard Booth's Bookshop
Send your dreams, wishes and stories out to the high seas, as we create miniature sailing boats to launch down the River Wye.
Drop in, for families of all ages
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Family Letter Writing Workshop
Event 11 • Saturday 3 December 2011, 2pm–5pm •
Venue: Richard Booth's Bookshop
Join Amnesty International to celebrate the art of letter writing and discover how to write a letter that can change someone’s life.
For families, all ages
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Event 12 • Saturday 3 December 2011, 2pm •
Venue: Community Centre
Calling all young chefs! Pick up some handy baking tips in time for the holidays, as we create tasty Pear Crumble Muffins.
10–14 years
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A Century Of Film And How It Shaped Us
Event 13 • Saturday 3 December 2011, 3.30pm •
Venue: Community Centre
Join Francine on her personal journey through a glorious century of cinema, showing in vivid detail how film both reflects and makes our world.
More about A Century Of Film And How It Shaped Us
At the end of the nineteenth century, audiences were enthralled by the flickering image of an oncoming train in a Lumiere Brothers' short film; more than a hundred years later the immersive fantasy of Avatar enveloped audiences around the globe. Film is a communal dream, in which our fears and fantasies are revealed, often to startling effect. It has influenced our behaviour in small but significant ways, from the widespread abandonment of vests after Clark Gable's example in It Happened One Night to gangsters holding their weapons at movie-cool angles, improving their image but not their aim. It has intertwined with politics, helping to forge national identity, galvanise against a wartime enemy or warn of social upheaval via horror or science fiction. It has burrowed deep into our psyche, changing perceptions of history and memory – one study showed soldiers' recall may sometimes owe more to war films than actual experience. It has even raised romantic expectations that for us, too, 'the one' will arrive for that big clinch in the final reel. Despite decades of rapid change, we are still hypnotised and seduced by the power of cinema; it remains our most persuasive mass entertainment. In this fascinating, entertaining and illuminating book Francine Stock takes us on a personal journey through a glorious century of cinema, showing in vivid detail how film both reflects and makes our world.
'Stock's prose vaults gracefully between reference points... her analyses here are impressively fluent and insightful.' The Scotsman
'As a guide to 100 years of cinema, Francine Stock certainly has the credentials... an informative, easy read.' The Sunday Times
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The Art Of Betrayal
Event 14 • Saturday 3 December 2011, 5pm •
Venue: Community Centre
The British Secret Service has been cloaked in secrecy and shrouded in myth since it was created a hundred years ago. A unique and unprecedented insight into this secret world and the reality behind the fiction.
More about The Art Of Betrayal
From the defining period of the early Cold War through to the modern day, MI6 has undergone a dramatic transformation from a gung-ho, amateurish organisation to its modern, no less controversial, incarnation. Gordon Corera reveals the triumphs and disasters along the way. For the first time, it is possible to draw a picture of what spies really get up to. Corera draws on the first-hand accounts of those who have spied, lied and in some cases nearly died in service of the state. They range from spymasters to the agents they ran, from the families of Britain's spies to their sworn enemies. Most of these accounts are drawn from interviews conducted by the author; many have chosen to speak on the record for the first time. From the Congo to Moscow, from Tehran to Hanoi, from post-war Vienna to the back streets of London, these are the voices of the people who have worked on the front line of Britain's secret wars. And the truth is often more remarkable than the fiction.
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Transition Companion
Event 15 • Saturday 3 December 2011, 5pm •
Venue: Richard Booth's Bookshop
The Transition Town initiative founder tells inspiring tales of communities working for a future where local economies are valued and nurtured and where enterprise, creativity and resilience have become cornerstones of a new economy. Includes a showing of the Hay Transition Town short film.
More about The Transition Companion
In 2008, the best-selling The Transition Handbook suggested a model for a community-led response to peak oil and climate change. Since then, the Transition idea has gone viral around the world, from Italian villages and Brazilian favelas to universities and London boroughs. In contrast to the ever-worsening stream of information about climate change, the economy and resource depletion, Transition focuses on solutions, on community-scale responses, on meeting people and on having fun.
The Transition Companion picks up the story today. It tells inspiring tales of communities working for a future where local economies are valued and nurtured; where lower energy use is seen as a benefit; and where enterprise, creativity and the building of resilience have become cornerstones of a new economy. It combines these remarkable stories with practical advice on the tools needed to start and maintain a Transition initiative.
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Hay Festival International Writing Fellowship
Event 16 • Saturday 3 December 2011, 7pm •
Venue: Richard Booth's Bookshop
Our two inaugural fellows share a little of their work so far. Tiffany and Jon are travelling to all Hay’s international festivals, from Kenya to Spain to Mexico to India, and reporting back on their year so far. Gather around for a warm winter session with fiction born in faraway places.
More about the Hay Festival International Writing Fellowship
Welsh writers Jon Gower and Tiffany Murray were announced as the inaugural Hay International Fellows during Hay Festival 2011.
The fellowships, supported by Arts Council Wales and Wales Arts International, will give Jon and Tiffany the opportunity to experience each of Hay’s growing international portfolio of festivals and to develop their own work and projects through their year long tenure. Both writers will be travelling to Trivandum for Hay Festival Kerala (17–19 November 2011) and to Bangladesh for Hay Festival Dhaka (21 November 2011).
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Followed by Q&A with Owen Sheers
Event 17 • Saturday 3 December 2011, 7pm •
Venue: Parish Hall
Owen Sheers’ Resistance opens in wartime 1944: after the failed D-day landings, a German counter-attack lands on British soil. Within a month, half of Britain is occupied. Film starring Michael Sheen and Andrea Riseborough.
Film: UK 2011: 92 minutes: PG
Followed by Q&A with the writer
This event has taken place
