A schedule of events
at the Sony Screen.

Buy tickets for any of these events at the Hay festival website.

FRIDAY 22

[13] 4PM SONY SCREEN £4
Roger Crowley
Empires of the Sea
In the sixteenth century the Mediterranean became the battleground for a titanic maritime struggle between Islam and Christianity. Roger Crowley brings to life this extraordinary confrontation, which set frontiers that hold to this day.

[15] 5.15PM SONY SCREEN £4
Julian Orbach talks to Simon Jenkins
Gwynedd: Pevsner Buildings of Wales
The architectural survey examines the treasures of north-west Wales.
Sponsored by Brecon Beacons Holiday Cottages

[17] 6.30PM SONY SCREEN £5
Adrian Lambert
The Rural Media Company presents:
Still Life
Eleven-year-old Lauren has almost come to terms with her parents splitting up when a school history project rekindles some very painful memories and a violent and dangerous jealousy. Set in Herefordshire, the film wrestles with isolation and identity in a rural market town, where people quickly learn how to move on rather than move away. Still Life is the Rural Media Company’s latest ambitious community film production created over the course of a year with the people of Bromyard.

 

SATURDAY 23

[22] 9AM SONY SCREEN £5
Patricia Fara
The Cambridge 800 Series: Science – A Four Thousand Year History
When did science begin? Who did science? How does science change?
In association with Cambridge University and
The Cambridge Festival of Ideas

[25] 10AM SONY SCREEN £6
Howard Davies and Danny Quah
LSE Lecture: Banks, Booms and Busts – Where Next for the Global Economy?
The London School of Economics academics debate the financial crisis and give their views on when and how the world economy will emerge from the current collapse. Chaired by Adam Austerfield.

30] 11.30AM SONY SCREEN £5
John O’Farrell
An Utterly Impartial History of Britain
The satirist spins the story of our realm when you get 2000 Years of Upper Class Idiots in Charge.

[36] 1PM SONY SCREEN £5
Andrew Robinson
Lost Languages
Genius, obsession, delusion and rivalry in the race to unlock The Enigma of the World’s Undeciphered Scripts.

[40] 2.30PM SONY SCREEN £5
John Brewer
American Leonardo
The art historian explores the story of a single painting, La Belle Ferronnière by Leonardo Da Vinci, and shows how it reveals the intricacies of the C20th obsession with art, money and taste.

[46] 4PM SONY SCREEN £6
GF Newman talks to Marcel Berlins
Crime and Punishment
The passionate and politically engaged television dramas Law and Order, Judge John Deed and New Street Law question the bases of British justice.

[51] 5.30PM SONY SCREEN £9
Jake and Dinos Chapman talk to
Tim Marlow
The brothers make iconoclastic sculpture, prints and installations that examine, with searing wit and energy, contemporary politics, religion and morality.
In association with The White Cube Gallery

[57] 7PM SONY SCREEN £7
Noel Kingsbury, Tim Richardson,
Dan Pearson and Simon Jenkins
The C21st Garden – A place of beauty, a home for woodlice? How will the idea of the garden reflect ecological concerns, our understanding outdoor space as art, and the interface between humankind and nature?
Sponsored by Gardens Illustrated

[60] 8.30PM SONY SCREEN £9
David Buckland, Marcus Brigstocke
and KT Tunstall
Cape Farewell
The director of the organisation that inspires a cultural response to climate change is joined by two of his collaborators in the high Arctic.

[62] 10PM SONY SCREEN £14
Fay Presto
Magician
The great cabaret magician and entertainer creates illusions and wonder.
Sponsored by The Great English Outdoors

 

SUNDAY 24

[63] 9AM SONY SCREEN £4
Markus Zusak talks to Stephanie Merritt
The Book Thief
‘Some important information – this novel is narrated by Death. It’s a small story, about: a girl, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist fighter, and quite a lot of thievery.’

Richard Overy
The Morbid Age
The historian examines Britain Between the Wars – a time of great anxiety, resonant today, and the fear that the West was facing a possibly terminal crisis of civilization.
Sponsored by The Swan at Hay Hotel

[73] 11.30AM SONY SCREEN £7
Martin Rees
Cambridge 800 Series: Cosmos – The
Search for Extra Terrestrial Life
The Astronomer Royal celebrates the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s telescope and the Darwin bicentenary by boldly going in search of life elsewhere.
In association with Cambridge University and
The Cambridge Festival of Ideas

[79] 1PM SONY SCREEN £5
Susie Dent
Words of the Year
Do you know your kettlebell from your knork? Countdown’s cult language guru parses the patois

[HF17] 2.30PM SONY SCREEN £4
Lucy Shuttleworth
The Secret of Moonacre
The screenwriter of The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goodge, JK Rowling’s favourite children’s tale, speaks about her film adaptation, with clips and sneak previews of her forthcoming work. 9 years – adult

[HF19] 4PM SONY SCREEN £4
Shaun Tan
Tales From Outer Suburbia
The multi-award winning Australian illustrator and writer discusses his mesmerising work, including The Arrival, Tales From Outer Suburbia and his forthcoming projects with Pixar.

94] 5.30PM SONY SCREEN £7
Nicholas Parsons
How Pleasant to Know Mr Lear
The comedy legend presents a delightful portrait of the nonsensical genius and creator of The Owl and the Pussycat, The Jumblies and The Dong with the Luminous Nose.
Sponsored by Lynhales Hall Nursing Home

[100] 7PM SONY SCREEN £5
Victoria Hislop talks to Paul Blezard
The Return
Ravishing Spanish Civil War romance set in Granada from the no.1 bestseller.

105] 8.30PM SONY SCREEN £6
Rebecca Miller talks to Francine Stock
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee
The novelist and film director discusses her fiction and cinema treatments of her compelling story.

 

MONDAY 25

[HF20] 9AM SONY SCREEN £4
Marc Craste & Helen Ward
Varmints
The writer and film-maker of this beautifully haunting ecological tale come together to discuss working collaboratively and their recent BAFTA nomination. Screening included.
9 years – adult
Supported by Hereford College of Arts

[116] 10AM SONY SCREEN £6
Chris Stewart talks to Rosie Boycott
Three Ways to Capsize a Boat:
An Optimist Afloat
The charming joker-of-all-trades, author of Driving Over Lemons, yarns his tales of the high and very wet seas.
Sponsored by Shepherds Ice Cream

[133] 2.30PM SONY SCREEN £6
Jan Zalasiewicz
The Earth After Us
What might human civilization leave behind as relics into the far geological future? The geologist envisions what extra-terrestrial aliens, exploring Earth one hundred million years from now, might uncover in their excavations.

Chris Lowe
Cambridge 800 Series: Biosensors
The Director of the Institute of Biotechnology brings life to sensors and sensors to life. Chaired by Claire Armitstead.
In association with Cambridge University

[128] 1PM SONY SCREEN £6
Ed Stourton
It’s a PC World
The broadcaster explores What it Means to Live in a Land Gone Politically

139] 4PM SONY SCREEN £7
Jonathan Sacks talks to Ed Stourton
Future Tense
The Chief Rabbi discusses his vision for the future of Judaism, Jewish

[144] 5.30PM SONY SCREEN £8
Stephen Daldry talks to Francine Stock
The film director discusses his work on Billy Elliott, The Hours and The Reader.
Sponsored by Working Title

[149] 7PM SONY SCREEN £5
Olly & Suzi
Wild Art
Screening of a poignant documentary following Olly Williams and Suzi Winstanley, two unique wildlife artists who simultaneously work on the same painting of exotic and endangered animals while on location in the wildest corners of the earth. Followed by a Q&A

[153] 8.30PM SONY SCREEN £4
Damian Walford Davies and
Richard Marggraf Turley
Jade Corridors and Green Harpoons A son-et-lumière performance of poetry and image, strongly themed around desire, bodies and borders with the authors of Suit of Lights and Wan-Hu’s Flying Chair.

 

TUESDAY 26

[155] 10AM SONY SCREEN £5
Stephen Anderton and Charles Hawes
Discovering Welsh Gardens
The garden writer and his photographer look at gardens ancient and strikingly modern, and how to capture them in words and pictures.

[159] 11.30AM SONY SCREEN £5
Samuel Turvey
Witness to Extinction
Political apathy, environmental neglect and cultural crash inform this illustrated lecture about How We Failed to Save the Yangtze River Dolphin.

[165] 1PM SONY SCREEN £5
Anna Barford and Daniel Dorling
Atlas of the Real World
The globe mapped not by landmass but by health, wealth, and a fascinating and revelatory variety of indices. You will never see Earth in the same light again.

[169] 2.30PM SONY SCREEN £6
Piers Bizony
One Giant Leap
The Space historian celebrates the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 with astounding images and flight logs from the first manned mission to reach the moon.

[172] 4PM SONY SCREEN £6
Charles Avery
A School of Dolphins
The dolphin’s presence and meaning in Western Art from Antiquity (where it was associated with several gods), into the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Baroque (where it had Christian connotations, as well as playing a supporting role in fountains and furniture), and then on to the empires of Venice and Britain, ending in the 20th century with Matisse.

[176] 5.30PM SONY SCREEN £4
Conn Iggulden
Heroes
The best-selling creator of The Emperor, Conqueror and Dangerous Book for Boys series talks about heroism and heroes.

[180] 7.30PM SONY SCREEN £4
Adama Bah, Angus Davison and Richard
Harvey hosted by Marcus Brigstocke
Time to re-consider: Is there a better way of doing business in Africa? Ledbury organic fruit producer Haygrove and the Hereford-based international development charity Concern Universal have created a superb model for African Trade with their pioneering ‘Gambia is Good’ project, supporting 1,000 subsistence farmers across the country, supplying nearly half of the tourist market.

 

WEDNESDAY 27

[186] 10AM SONY SCREEN £5
Nicola Coldstream
Builders and Decorators
Medieval Craftsmen in Wales brought to vivid life by the eminent art and architecture historian.
Supported by CADW

[189] 11.30AM SONY SCREEN £6
Alanna Mitchell
Seasick: The Hidden Ecological Crisis of the Global Ocean
99% of the planet’s living space is undergoing vast chemical changes at the hand of man.
Sponsored by UNESCO Cymru

[194] 1PM SONY SCREEN £6
John Bulmer talks to Eamonn McCabe
Retrospective
To celebrate his major show at the Hereford Photography Festival the film-maker and photographer shows and discusses his colour work from the 60s and 70s with The Guardian’s Picture Editor.
In association with Hereford College of Art and
Hereford Photography Festival

[198] 2.30PM SONY SCREEN £6
Helena Attlee
Gardens of Wales
The writer features her favourite Welsh gardens, illustrated by photographer Alex Ramsey.
Sponsored by The Railway Line Nursery

[HF56] 4PM SONY SCREEN £4
Dugald A. Steer
Dragonology
Dragon scales, riddles and runes; come and learn the secrets of the ancient science of dragonology. Mystery and magic guaranteed. 7 years +

[202] 5.30PM SONY SCREEN £7
Michael Pawlyn
Architecture and Biomimicry
As part of the ‘RIBA Trust International Dialogues: Architecture and Climate Change’ Programme.
Sponsored by Gleeds

[208] 7.45PM SONY SCREEN FREE BUT TICKETED*
The European Cup Final
Champions League final live from the Stadio Olimpico in Rome.
* There will be a collection for charity

 

THURSDAY 28

[213] 9AM SONY SCREEN £4
Andrew Mottram
The God Boxes
Until the Reformation churches were huge multi-functional spaces. There was no other centre. No pubs. No civic centres or courts. Everything happened in the parish church. Then it all got stuck. The church became a ‘God box’ full of pews. The radical Director of Ecclesiastical Property Solutions discusses the role of church buildings in their communities today.
Sponsored by The Elmley Foundation

[216] 10AM SONY SCREEN £4
William Nicholson
The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life
The novelist and screenwriter introduces his witty and acute social comedy set in a Sussex village.

[225] 1PM SONY SCREEN £5
Rob Hopkins, Rosie Boycott
and Andrew Simms
Transition Now
Frontline news from the UK’s fastest growing social experiment – the Transition Town Movement – with movement founder Rob Hopkins and journalist and smallholder Rosie Boycott. Chaired by nef Policy Director Andrew Simms.
Part of the nef series ‘Surviving the Crash’.
nef is sponsored by The Ecology Building Society
[227] 2.30PM SONY SCREEN £5
Colin Tudge
Consider the Birds
Some birds have fabulous memories, some make tools, and some are serious aesthetes. Yet birds, basically, are dinosaurs. We don’t need Star Trek to find alien intelligence. Just consider the birds!

[229] 3.45PM SONY SCREEN £5
Hannah Rothschild
The Jazz Baroness Screening
The director introduces a screening of her magical film about her great-aunt the jazz patron Panonica Rothschild and her relationship with the bebop king Thelonious Monk. Featuring Helen Mirren, Sonny Rollins, Clint Eastwood and Quincy Jones.

[235] 5.30PM SONY SCREEN £7
Michael Deeley talks to Matthew Field
Blade Runners, Deer Hunters and Blowing
the Bloody Doors Off
The A-list producer of The Italian Job, Blade Runner and The Deer Hunter tells his tales from a life in film.

HF 75 6.30pm, £5, Sony Screen
James Campbell Comedy 4 Kids
Forget clowns, join one of the UK’s top comedians for some proper comedy for kids. Guaranteed to tickle your ribs and your fancy.
7 years +

[241] 7.30PM SONY SCREEN £6
Anthony Horowitz talks to Paul Blezard
Screenwriting
The screenwriter discusses his work on Foyle’s War, Poirot, Midsomer Murders and Murder in Mind.

[243] 8.45PM SONY SCREEN £7
Franny Armstrong talks to
George Monbiot
Age of Stupid
The director of the hugely successful Climate Change movie discusses clips and the making of the film.
Sponsored by The Bulmer Foundation

 

FRIDAY 29

[249] 10AM SONY SCREEN £5
Conor Woodman
Around the World in 80 Trades
The economist sets out his Adventures in Economics, trading Sudanese camels for Zambian coffee, the coffee for South African red wine, and then off to China to buy jade with the proceeds.

[252] 11.30AM SONY SCREEN £6
Stefan Collini
Cambridge 800 Series: Criticism and the
Reading Public
The Professor of Intellectual History and English Literature challenges the alleged decline of ‘the serious reading public’. Chaired by Claire Armitstead.
In association with Cambridge University and
The Cambridge Festival of Ideas

[257] 1PM SONY SCREEN £6
Paul Murdin
Cambridge 800 Series:
Full Meridian of Glory
The Cambridge professor tells the tale of the astronomers and the geodesists tasked with establishing the definitive longitudinal base in the Observatory in Paris – the Perilous Adventures in the Competition to Measure the Earth.

260] 2.30PM SONY SCREEN £6
Hugh Warwick
A Prickly Affair: My Life With Hedgehogs
A truly eccentric global story of hog lore, conservation and devotion.

[262] 4PM SONY SCREEN £6
David Crystal
The Perils of Being a Linguist
The Word Prof casts a humorous eye over a career of dangerous encounters – kidnapping and assassination, assault and murder, bribery and corruption, belly-dancers and red-light districts, revolutions and spies. Sponsored by Cross

[266] 5.30PM SONY SCREEN £8
David Adjaye and Deyan Sudjic talk
to Amanda Baillieu
Does recession mean the end of the Icon?
The leading British architect and the Director of the Design Museum discuss with the editor of Building Design.
Sponsored by The American Hardwood Export
Council and Building Design Magazine

[270] 7PM SONY SCREEN £6
David Peace talks to Peter Guttridge The cult novelist discusses his recently filmed stories The Red Riding Quartet and The Damned Utd.

[274] 8.30PM SONY SCREEN £9
James Marsh and Simon Chinn
talk to Sarfraz Manzoor
Man on Wire
The Oscar-winning documentary-makers introduce and discuss their film about Philippe Petit’s 1974 illegal wire walk between New York’s Twin Towers.
In association with Borderlines Film Festival,
Herefordshire & Shropshire

[276] 9.45PM SONY SCREEN £5
Man on Wire screening
‘To me, it’s really so simple, that life should be lived on the edge. You have to exercise rebellion. To refuse to tape yourself to the rules, to refuse your own success, to refuse to repeat yourself, to see every day, every year, every idea as a true challenge. Then you will live your life on the tightrope.’
In association with Borderlines Film Festival,
Herefordshire & Shropshire

 

SATURDAY 30

[279] 9AM SONY SCREEN £4
Liz Fleming-Williams & Simon Fraser
with Ruth Bidgood
Gwesyn – Stillffilm
The photographer and sound recordist introduce a journey that follows the river Gwesyn from its source near the summit of Drygarn Fawr in the Cambrian Mountains to its confluence with the river Irfon in the village of Abergwesyn using source material in photographs and multi-track field recordings. The Welsh poet reads her poem ‘Film, Gwesyn’ from her book Time Being inspired by the film.

[282] 10AM SONY SCREEN £8
Deyan Sudjic
The Language of Things
How did the design of a pistol influence a car? Why did a chair make a café the most fashionable place in Paris? What can we learn from a banknote, a police uniform or a typeface? The Director of the Design Museum explores our visual vocabulary. Sponsored by The American Hardwood Export Council and Building Design Magazine

[287] 11.30AM SONY SCREEN £6
Sabine Bahn
Cambridge 800 Series: Bringing Mental
Illness Out of the Shadows
Cambridge Centre for Neuropsychiatric Research’s expert discusses new developments in understanding and treating severe mental illness. Chaired by consultant Psychiatrist Harriet Stewart.
In association with Cambridge University and The Cambridge Festival of Ideas

[293] 1PM SONY SCREEN £7
Reza Aslan talks to Sarfraz Manzoor
How to Win a Cosmic War
‘Why do they hate us?’ And who exactly are They? Al-Qaeda? Islamic nationalists? The whole Muslim world? The writer and scholar lays out a comprehensive definition of the movement behind and surrounding al-Qaeda and the like, a global ideology properly termed Jihadism.

[298] 2.30PM SONY SCREEN £7
Melvyn Bragg
Autobiography and Fiction
The award-winning novelist and biographer explores his book Remember Me and the ethics and practice of writing fiction that reflects real lives. Sponsored by Tanners Wines

[303] 4PM SONY SCREEN £6
Arthur Smith
My Name is Daphne Fairfax
The hilarious, scandalous and delightfully rude memoir from the comedian – ‘My name is Arthur Smith, unless there’s anybody here from the Streatham tax office. In which case, I’m Daphne Fairfax’. Sponsored by Zebra Design

[308] 5.30PM SONY SCREEN £6
Tristram Hunt
The Frock-Coated Communist
The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels, huntsman and author of The Communist Manifesto.

[314] 7PM SONY SCREEN £9
Frank Gardner talks to Rosie
Goldsmith
Far Horizons
The intrepid BBC Security Correspondent’s adventures and epicly hard travels before and since he lost the use of his legs when he was gunned down in Riyadh.

[320] 8.30PM SONY SCREEN £5
Anne Michaels
Fugitive Pieces: Screening
The novelist introduces a screening of the movie, adapted and directed by Jeremy Podeswa, and starring Stephen Dillane and Rosamund Pike. Canada, 2007, 104’.
In association with Borderlines Film Festival, Herefordshire & Shropshire

 

SUNDAY 31

[325] 9AM SONY SCREEN FREE BUT TICKETED
Owen Sheers
Screening: Poem From Llanybri
The poet and author presents a preview screening of his programme about ‘Poem From Llanybri’ by Lynette Roberts from his BBC4 series, A Poet’s Guide to Britain.

[329] 10AM SONY SCREEN £5
AC Grayling
Liberty in an Age of Terror
Privacy, free speech and individual autonomy, rights hard-won over centuries, are being eroded by state surveillance and data centralization. The philosopher argues for the vigorous defence of civil liberties.

[334] 11.30AM SONY SCREEN £6
Andrew Davies talks to
Peter Florence
Little Dorrit Film Masterclass
The screenwriter analyses three key scenes from his recent TV adaptation of Dickens’ novel.

[340] 1PM SONY SCREEN £6
Tim Birkhead
The Wisdom of Birds
An illustrated history of ornithology. Supported by The RSPB Cymru

[345] 2.30PM SONY SCREEN £6
Doug Allan & Sue Flood
Behind the Scenes on Planet Earth
From the extremes of the Arctic winter filming polar bears in -40oC, to the tropical shallow seas of the South Pacific, where they swam with humpback whale mothers and their newborn calves, the wildlife film-makers show their captured images.

[350] 4PM SONY SCREEN £7
Rick Stroud
The New Space Race
The author of The Book of the Moon celebrates the anniversary of the first moon walk and examines what it is that has held our imagination for decades.

[354] 5.30PM SONY SCREEN £3
The Royal Opera House and
Opus Arte present
Twin Spirits
A preview screening of John Caird’s film which tells, in words and music, the story of love and tragedy in the lives of Robert and Clara Schumann, read by Sting and Trudie Styler