Hay Festival 2019 Programme

Come and work with students from Hereford College of Arts to create exciting artwork inspired by Roald Dahl’s exquisite nonsense. Just bring your imagination…and maybe a friend.

Please drop in to our new Compass venue, quiz leading academics about their subject and engage in some critical thinking. As part of Hay Festival 2016 and with help from the Welsh Government we have invited a range of university lecturers and speakers to drop in, talk about their subject areas and about university life.

Maggie Andrews is Professor of Cultural History at the University of Worcester.

Book a seat in the Relish Festival Restaurant and receive a free drink on us.

Enjoy a delicious meal from our Festival Restaurant buffet. Choose from a wide selection of hot and cold dishes created fresh on site by our team of chefs using the best local seasonal produce. You can view the menu online here.

Come up to the buffet and choose as much as you like from all the dishes on offer for just £20. 

By booking online or by phone you will receive a complimentary glass of wine, bottle of beer or soft drink, and guarantee your seat in the restaurant where our team will be waiting to give you a warm welcome.

Alex Gooch breads and water are free for every customer, with a selection of desserts to choose from as well as a full bar and barista coffees.

The first of four recitals broadcast live from Hay this week. Alexander Sitkovetsky (violin) and Wu Qian (piano) play de Falla’s Suite Popular Española; Prokofiev’s Sonata No.1 in F minor, Op. 80; and Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen, Op. 20. Concert introduced by Clemency Burton-Hill.

The writer discusses his 1982 Booker-winning novel about Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist who risked his life to protect and rescue Jews from Auschwitz. The book was made into a film by Steven Spielberg as Schindler’s List.

From the food on our plates to the greens in our garden, many plants share one extraordinary characteristic – they contain two, three or even 10 copies of their entire genetic code in each of their cells. This so-called ‘polyploidy’ crams cells full of DNA and not only gives us weird and wonderful-looking plants, but almost all of the plants we eat every day. The Director of Science at the Royal Botanical Gardens Kew and Michael Faraday Prize winner talks about polyploidy and how it will help us take on our great global challenges.

The flood that God used to destroy the sinful race of man on Earth in Genesis 6:17 crystallises in its terrifying, dramatic simplicity the universally recognised concept of payback. For millennia human civilisation has relied on such beliefs to create a moral order that threatens divine punishment on people who commit crimes, while promising rewards – abstract or material – for those who do good. Today, while secularism and unbelief are at an all-time high, this almost superstitious willingness to believe in karma persists. Why?

Why are readers so interested in the lives and opinions of writers? When did writers become celebrities in the way we understand them today? And what did those lucky few who acquired some souvenir or relic of their favourite writer hope to gain from it? Two critics look at the rise of literary celebrity in the C18^th and C19^th, the cult of the poet and the trade in literary relics.

Join us behind the scenes to watch BBC Radio 4’s long-running lunchtime news analysis programme as we broadcast live from Hay every weekday in the BBC Tent. Presented by Martha Kearney with special guests.

Broadcasting live on BBC Radio 4 at 1pm. Please be seated by 12.50pm.

This debut author’s thrilling series kicks off in style as orphan Denizen Hardwick is snatched from his orphanage to fulfil his amazing destiny. Hear about the ancient order of knights who control the terrifying creatures that can grow in the dark in a world where nothing can be taken for granted.

See 11.30am session for details.

Come and work with students from Hereford College of Arts to create exciting artwork inspired by Roald Dahl’s exquisite nonsense. Just bring your imagination…and maybe a friend.

Book a seat in the Relish Festival Restaurant and receive a free drink on us.

Enjoy a delicious meal from our Festival Restaurant buffet. Choose from a wide selection of hot and cold dishes created fresh on site by our team of chefs using the best local seasonal produce. You can view the menu online here.

Come up to the buffet and choose as much as you like from all the dishes on offer for just £20. 

By booking online or by phone you will receive a complimentary glass of wine, bottle of beer or soft drink, and guarantee your seat in the restaurant where our team will be waiting to give you a warm welcome.

Alex Gooch breads and water are free for every customer, with a selection of desserts to choose from as well as a full bar and barista coffees.

To celebrate the bicentenary of Charlotte’s birth, the two Johnnies reread the best books by the sisters from Haworth: Charlotte’s Jane Eyre, Emily’s Wuthering Heights and Anne’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

The journalist explains how the cult of disruption in Silicon Valley, the ceaseless advance of technology, and our own fundamental appetite for novelty and convenience have combined to speed up every aspect of daily life. He explains how this is transforming the media, politics, farming and the financial markets, and asks whether our bodies and the natural environment can cope. Chaired by Sarfraz Manzoor.

In a robust Q&A, the Liberal Democrat who served as business secretary in the coalition government from 2010-2015 considers the state of the global economy in the aftermath of the 2008 crash.

Kepler is one of history’s most admired astronomers, who famously discovered that planets move in ellipses and defined the three laws of planetary motion. In 1615, at the height of his career, his widowed mother Katharina was accused of witchcraft; the proceedings led to a criminal trial that lasted six years. Kepler conducted his mother’s defence. The trial and the arguments advanced give a revealing picture of Europe on the cusp between the Reformation and the scientific revolution that was to follow.

For BBC Radio 3’s The Essay, three writers consider 'The Art of Storytelling'. Clemency Burton-Hill and Professor David Crystal explore the role of music and language in storytelling, while, in an essay of five acts, Professor Emma Smith celebrates William Shakespeare.

To be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 at 10.45PM on Wed 1, Thurs 2 and Friday 3 June.

Under 16s must be accompanied by an adult over 18 years