Hay Festival 2019 Programme

In this workshop we’ll take a current press story e.g. the EU Referendum or the American Presidential Campaign, pare it back to the bare facts and then look at different techniques journalists use to spin the story. Then groups will be given their own 'bare facts' and using phones and laptops for research, design and writing - will be asked to spin positively or negatively.

The brilliantly funny new show – featuring stories, songs and readings –about that moment in your late twenties when you suddenly realise that all your mates are growing up without you. The invisible deal that Isy had made – to prolong growing up for as long as possible – was all in her head. Suddenly everyone around her is into mortgages, farmers’ markets and nappies, rather than skinny-dipping in the sea and sambuca sessions on rope-swings. When her dearest friend advises Isy that the next guy she meets will be not just The One, but The Actual One, Isy decides to delay the onset of adulthood for just a bit longer until a bet with her mum results in a mad scramble to find a boyfriend within a month. 

Welsh introduces his elegant, electrifying novel, which marks the return of one of modern fiction’s most infamous, terrifying characters, the incendiary Francis Begbie from Trainspotting. Welsh talks about gangland violence, drug culture and the vitality of language with the Man Booker prize-winning author of A Brief History of Seven Killings.

Join host Ed Gillespie and two teams of the great and the good from the world of sustainability for this riotous and irreverent game show. Expect a heady mix of topicality, tomfoolery, ritual humiliation and randomness. No (live) insects will be hurt during the proceedings. We can’t guarantee the same for our heroic participants’ feelings, pride and reputations.

A conversation about Shakespeare’s greatest plays and roles, his fondness for prime numbers and his stagecraft. The UCL English Prof is joined by the first woman to write a play for the main stage of Shakespeare’s Globe, the Oxford Maths professor and the Booker-winning novelist and poet.

The elegantly talented RCM guitarist plays John Duarte, English Suite; Agustín Barrios Mangore, Julia Florida; William Walton, Bagatelles 2 and 3; Silvius Leopold Weiss, Passacaglia; Domenico Scarlatti, 2 keyboard sonatas; Villa Lobos, etudes 1 and 8; JS Bach, Prelude (from Prelude Fugue and Allegro); Napoleon Coste, Introduction and Allegretto; Girolamo Frescobaldi, Aria con Variazioni.

Dafydd previews clips from her debut feature Y Llyfrgell/The Library Suicides ahead of its UK release this autumn. She is joined by the multi-BAFTA-award-winning director Euros Lyn (Happy Valley, Broadchurch, Last Tango in Halifax) and rising international star of stage and screen Catrin Stewart (Doctor Who, Stella, Mametz). Chaired by Jon Gower.

A special festival appearance by the American singer and songwriter whose songs Luka and Tom’s Diner established her as one of the great poets and folk musicians of her generation. Her most recent project is the musical play Lover, Beloved: An Evening With Carson McCullers.

Why are the ‘junior doctors’ calling an all-out strike? What do the PFI hospital contracts mean? How much of the NHS is privatised already? How could it all be better? And what can we do about that? The physician, philosopher and writer Raymond Tallis is the author of NHS SOS; Donley is Clinical Vice President, Royal College of Physicians; Grigg is a GP in the Hay Medical Centre practice.

The show is a mixture of completely true stories about Tony Blair, Oedipus Rex and the wildlife of Lewisham, plus a load of stories that don’t sound true at all about Jason Donovan, Henry the Hoover and when God took over the tannoy in Sainsbury’s. All animals evolved, but only humans evolved to the point of knowing they evolved. This troubling and confusing position is explored in a creative and honest way in a show about empathy and its limitations. Sara has appeared on Live at the Apollo, Mock the Week, Have I Got News for You, QI, Room 101, Buzzcocks, 8 out of 10 Cats and a load of other programmes that can’t be listed due to word count restrictions.

The intimate story of tsars and tsarinas; some touched by genius, some by madness, but all inspired by holy autocracy and imperial ambition. The historian’s gripping chronicle reveals their secret world of unlimited power and ruthless empire-building, overshadowed by palace conspiracy, family rivalries, sexual decadence and wild extravagance, and peopled by a cast of adventurers, courtesans, revolutionaries and poets, from Ivan the Terrible to Tolstoy, from Queen Victoria to Lenin. Sebag Montefiore is the author of Catherine the Great & Potemkin and Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar.

The applications of artificial intelligence lie all around us: in our homes, schools and offices, in our cinemas, in art galleries and - not least - on the internet. The results of artificial intelligence have been invaluable to biologists, psychologists and linguists in helping to understand the processes of memory, learning and language from a fresh angle. Boden is Research Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of Sussex, and one of the best-known figures in the field of artificial intelligence. She is the author of Mind as Machine: a History of Cognitive Science.

In this 500th anniversary of Thomas More’s Utopia three writers tell the stories of people escaping horrors and seeking a better world elsewhere. These are the inside stories of refuge and migrations. McDonald-Gibson is the author of Cast Away: Stories of Survival from Europe’s Refugee Crisis; Kingsley is the author of The New Odyssey: The Story of Europe’s Refugee Crisis; Rawlence’s book is City of Thorns: Nine Lives in the World’s Largest Refugee Camp. Chaired by Oliver Balch.


In association with Wales Pen Cymru

“Women have so much going on, what with boobs and jealousy and menstruating and broodiness and sex and infidelity and pubes and wombs and jobs and memories and emotions and the past and the future and themselves and each other.” The comedian combines autobiography and evolutionary history to create a funny, fascinating insight into the forces that mould and affect modern women.

Twenty years ago the UK stopped building nuclear stations. Why are we now planning an £18 billion, French-Chinese, nuclear power station at Hinkley Point? Taylor is lecturer in finance at Cambridge University.

A masterclass on how to get started in the media, featuring a discussion with researchers and producers from radio, television and online.

Not for broadcast.

The film-makers introduce a preview screening of their documentary film about the crazy story of Kim Jong-Il and his kidnapping of South Korean actress Choi Eun-hee and her estranged director husband Shin Sang-ok to make films for him in North Korea.  Chaired by Jasper Fforde.

One of the greatest peacetime disasters in British history occurred during William Shakespeare’s lifetime. The Great Flood of 1607 devastated large tracts of land on both sides of the Severn Estuary. Learning from the river can help to inform our past and our global future relationship with coastal development. Lewis is Senior Curator Roman Archaeology, National Roman Legion Museum.

Take a fresh look at Shakespeare with the Blue Peter Award-winning author  as she gives action-packed retellings of Macbeth, Hamlet, A Midsummer’s Night Dream and Romeo and Juliet.

Join the picture-book creator on a journey through the imagination searching for hidden treasure. There’s gold to find and secrets to keep but, above all there is a wonderful story to celebrate. With live drawing, treasure maps and story time, this is perfect for little adventurers.