Hay Festival After hours
Experience Hay Festival live in a city near you. Hay Festival After hours events will tour the UK, widening access to the important conversations and performances that take place on our stages. This is a chance to experience the excitement of the Festival in one magical evening, a space where art forms collide and great minds meet.
Hay Festival After hours: Bristol
An evening of words, ideas and re-imagined worlds
– Bristol Beacon - The Lantern Hall
Hay Festival After hours brings together some of the most compelling voices in poetry, politics and cultural storytelling. From searing spoken word and lyrical performance to urgent global analysis and re-enchanting visions of Britain, this special event explores how stories shape who we are – and who we might yet become.
Join us in Bristol this March to hear from a powerful line-up of extraordinary voices
Award-winning writer Rana Dasgupta explores a world in political freefall in After Nations: The Making and Unmaking of a World Order. Tracing the nation-state from its origins to its global dominance, he concludes that today’s crises are no accident – it’s time to imagine a new political order fit for a globalised world.
Documentary-maker and BBC 6 Music’s newest DJ Zakia Sewell is on a quest for another Britain. Drawing on her book Finding Albion: Myth, Folklore and the Quest for a Hidden Britain, Zakia uncovers an alternative spirit that is vividly alive today in Celtic seasonal rites and cultural echoes passed along slave trade routes. She talks to author, historian and critic Colin Grant, known for his insightful texts exploring race and identity – including his book Homecoming: Voices of the Windrush Generation.
Vanessa Kisuule is a writer, performer and poet based in Bristol, and is host of BBC Radio 4’s The Poetry Detective. Committed to inspiring audiences to connect more profoundly with the art of poetry, she will be exploring the boundaries of cultural storytelling and how audiences can engage with the arts in a live setting.
From reimagined histories to visionary futures, this is an evening that asks us to push the possibilities of our imagination.
Join us for a night to remember.