Hay Festival 2016

Step inside Hay Castle during Hay Festival 2026 and explore a place shaped by power, survival and reinvention. Led by an expert volunteer guide, this tour traces 800 years of life inside the castle – from medieval plots and royal whispers to its rescue, restoration and reimagining as a place for ideas today. You’ll move through rooms, stairways and towers, hearing stories of the people who lived, schemed, dreamed and partied here. Along the way, take in sweeping views across the Wye Valley – a reminder that this is a border castle, built to watch and be watched.

Guided tours run daily at 11am and 2pm. Tour price includes entry into the Castle for a year including the current exhibition: BorderLands.

Enjoy this 20-minute open-air performance between events, showcasing a diverse repertoire of feel-good contemporary tunes, pop, musical theatre, classical and more. Choral Diversity Choir firmly believes in the mantra ‘if you can talk, you can sing’, embracing the idea that everyone should have the opportunity to find their voice and experience the joy of singing. The Leominster-based choir was founded in 2016 under the direction of Beth Melling, and has raised over £25,000 for charitable causes.

How much power is too much power? Step into the heart of the Big Tech debate with Tim Wu, Columbia Law School Professor of Law, Science and Technology, and Sarah Wynn-Williams, former Facebook Director of Global Public Policy, in conversation with investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr, the reporter who exposed the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

This candid discussion pulls back the curtain on the unprecedented influence of social media, the hidden forces shaping our online lives, and the urgent questions about democracy, privacy and accountability in the digital age. A rare opportunity to hear from the people who understand Big Tech from the inside – and to confront the forces shaping the future of society.

Prepare for a barrage of rapid-fire wit and satirical humour as friends Kathy Lette and Arabella Weir ask some of the big questions of our day: is satire dead in the Trump era? Is the sisterhood still powerful? Do women give up sex when they get old, or get old when they give up sex?

The pair also discuss Lette’s hilarious new novel. In The Sisterhood Rules, twin sisters Isabel and Verity have been blown apart by a major betrayal. But when their mother goes missing, the sisters have to join forces to find her before she makes a dreadful mistake.

A roller-coaster ride through comedy, female friendship and writing. The message for women? Never let a penis come between us.

Travel from Pakistan’s sophisticated cities to its rural farmlands, as Daniyal Mueenuddin discusses his debut novel and its real-life influences with journalist Sathnam Sanghera, author of several books on the British Empire.

Mueenuddin was a lawyer working in New York before he returned to manage the family farm in Pakistan. Now he’s become an author too. His book weaves together the stories of a dozen characters, including Yazid, who rises from abject poverty to be the trusted servant to an affluent gangster, errand boy Saqib, trusted to lead his boss’s new farming venture, and Gazala, a young teacher who falls for Saqib before learning about his plans to skim money from the farm’s profits.

Mueenuddin and Sanghera discuss portraying modern Pakistan, writing about family and what inspired This is Where the Serpent Lives.

How do we raise children in a climate emergency? If you’ve ever wondered what kind of future we’re facing and how to parent for it, this event offers some clarity and hope.

Ben Rawlence – who is founder and director of Black Mountains College, an institution dedicated to preparing people for the changes to come – has for many years written letters to his growing daughters, trying to understand what it means to bring a child into a world facing ecological breakdown. Talking to nature journalist Nicola Cutcher about these letters, published as Think Like a Forest, he discusses how to live with the central contradiction of our age: raising children within a system that threatens all life.

Will AI change the art of storytelling? Or has it already? In this essential conversation, three writing and publishing experts explore how the business of books is adapting to the new and revolutionary technology.

Editor of The Bookseller Philip Jones joins acclaimed writer and translator Daniel Hahn and leading literary agent Cathryn Summerhayes of Curtis Brown to explore what makes a book break through in a rapidly changing industry. From data and discoverability to voice, originality and global reach, they ask what AI can write, what remains uniquely human and what the future may be for artists working alongside AI.

Experience evocative storytelling that bridges page and screen, in this screening of BAFTA and Olivier Award-winning actor Monica Dolan’s narration of the Jane Austen classic.

Dolan gives a captivating reading performance of Austen’s poignant tale of enduring affection, in which a rekindled love tests pride and regret as Anne Elliot navigates societal pressures and second chances.

The Read is a series of outstanding performance readings of iconic British novels. Each episode offers a richly immersive celebration of literature.

Get ready to rhyme, rap and ROAR with laughter!

Join former Children’s Laureate and poetry icon Michael Rosen and award-winning rap teacher and viral sensation, MC Grammar, for a riotous celebration of words. These two masters of language pit Raps against Rhymes in a high-energy carnival of poetry, performance and pure fun. Perfect for families and anyone who loves wordplay. It will leave you smiling, inspired and maybe even freestyling your own ridiculous rhymes all the way home!

Secrets hidden in plain sight reveal the fall of an Empire – and the rise of another. Academic, author and broadcaster Professor Alice Roberts takes us on a gripping investigative journey to reveal how the Roman Empire fell, and how Christianity seamlessly took its place. Unearthing archaeological clues and challenging long-established histories, Roberts tells a remarkable story of how power survives.

Most of us resign ourselves to a garden of muddy, boggy twigginess in the winter months – but not Sarah Raven. Curating her garden at Perch Hill in Sussex to provide a constant supply of flowers, Raven has mastered the art of year-round abundance. Harvest some tips, tricks and ideas about planning, growing and arranging flowers from the gardener par excellence as she shares the secrets to continuous colour, outdoors and in.

Sarah has led the way over the last three decades with an approach to gardening that fuses intense colour and elegance with practicality. Her podcast Grow, Cook, Eat, Arrange is all about creating your most productive garden, and she’s written many books on year-round growing and cooking, as well as cutting and arranging flowers.

Expect a dynamic discussion with one of our most talented and innovative contemporary writers, as we celebrate both an international literary award winner and 39 years of Hay Festival this year.

The winner of the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize – the world’s largest and most prestigious literary prize for young writers – joins us to discuss their winning book in conversation with Irenosen Okojie, herself an award-winning author and chair of the judging panel.

This global accolade recognises exceptional literary talent aged 39 or under, from the international world of fiction in all its forms including poetry, novels, short stories and drama. Named after the Swansea-born writer Dylan Thomas, it honours his 39 years of creativity.

A 19th-century book of paintings of apples and pears may seem an unlikely candidate to be a landmark in British publishing, but the Herefordshire Pomona is just that. Herefordshire-based writer and historian Bill Laws captures the remarkable story of the Herefordshire Pomona, written by a country doctor and illustrated with 441 watercolours by his daughter and a virtually unknown artist.

Laws has written about country crafts including cider-making and brewing for publications including the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph. In this event he explores what the Herefordshire Pomona reveals and celebrates about the rich diversity of Herefordshire’s orchards, and how a humble collection about orcharding gained an international reputation.

A screening of Luca Guadagnino’s audacious adaptation of William Burroughs’ infamous novel, suffused with romantic longing. Starring an astonishing Daniel Craig as a lovestruck sensualist, Queer travels to the mesmerizing ends of love.

1950. William Lee, an American expat in Mexico City, spends his days almost entirely alone, except for a few contacts with other members of the community. His encounter with Eugene Allerton, an expat former soldier, shows him that it might be finally possible to establish an intimate connection.

Directed by Luca Guadagnino (2024). Film duration: 2 hours 17 minutes. Certificate 18.

Jeremy Bowen is one of the foremost journalists of our time, and has built a career from making sense of the complexities of conflict. Now, as the BBC’s international editor, we turn to him to analyse the prospects for peace in the Middle East – a region he’s lived and breathed for the past 30 years. Bowen also talks candidly about the difficulties of being a journalist at a time when ideas of truth and free reporting are under attack. And he poses the most difficult question of all: how do you get to the truth in a post-truth world?

Whatever you need, there’s a poetry prescription to make you feel better. From verses to soothe your soul and brighten your day to poems that offer comfort in times of trouble. William Sieghart, author of The Poetry Pharmacy trilogy, is joined by special guests including actors Denise Gough (Too Close, Andor), Natascha McElhone (Halo, The Crown) and Danny Sapani (Penny Dreadful, Misfits) for an afternoon of readings bringing connection, imagination and inspiration.

What does it mean to translate Shakespeare? When we change all the poetry, all the wordplay, all the syntax – all the words! – is it still Shakespeare? And is it still any good? Daniel Hahn, seasoned translator and Shakespeare enthusiast, will change the way you think about language itself.

Drawing on his new book If This Be Magic: The Unlikely Art of Shakespeare in Translation, he ranges widely across Shakespeare’s works, and across the world’s languages, exploring why we choose the words we do and what effect they have. He talks to literary journalist Alex Clark.

A rare chance to hear from the author whose generation-defining book offered readers an essential understanding of China’s recent history, and whose follow-up promises to do the same again.

Jung Chang’s epic personal history Wild Swans was a publishing sensation. The story of herself, her mother and her grandmother spanned the final days of the rule of China’s last emperor. It took us through the Cultural Revolution and into the late 1970s, as Jung herself emigrated to Britain as one of the first Chinese people to leave Communist China for the West.

Hear Chang discuss her follow-up, Fly, Wild Swans – almost 35 years in the making – with broadcaster Georgina Godwin. Bringing in the story of the past few decades of her life, from her arrival in the UK to study, through her academic and publishing successes, it’s an engrossing history that once again changes how we think about China.

A screening of Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s sensual adaptation of Deborah Levy’s novel, starring Emma Mackey and Fiona Shaw. With a strange illness, a mother and her daughter embark on a journey to the Spanish coast to find a cure, and along the way the daughter discovers another reality far from her controlling mother.

Directed by Rebecca Lenkiewicz (2025). Film duration: 1 hour 32 minutes. Certificate 15.

The first ever opportunity to see Welsh legend Aled Jones at Hay Festival in a hugely entertaining one-man show. Jones mixes his own behind-the-scenes stories from a remarkable career with never-before-heard music and the songs we love best. For the first time, this is Aled Jones’ story in his own words.