Welcome to our Early Bird programme. Please note that some events are currently only bookable by Friends of the festival. If you are already a Friend please log in here. If you would like to become a Friend, you can do so here.
Become a cloud expert with the meteorologist, author and presenter. She will spark the imagination of young minds as she talks weather and clouds, and reads from her latest children’s book.
Perry was Bill Clinton’s Defence Secretary and has worked on security throughout his career. He explains the development of his thinking on weaponry and security as he journeys from the Cuban Missile Crisis to crafting a defence strategy in the Carter Administration to offset the Soviets’ numeric superiority in conventional forces, presiding over the dismantling of more than 8,000 nuclear weapons in the Clinton Administration, and his creation in 2007 (with George Shultz, Sam Nunn and Henry Kissinger) of the Nuclear Security Project to articulate “a vision of a world free from nuclear weapons and to lay out the urgent steps needed to reduce nuclear dangers”.
Ninety-five per cent of all thoroughbreds in the world are descended from one horse, the so-called Darley Arabian, shipped from Aleppo to Yorkshire in 1704 by a second son who failed to make his fortune and died before he could follow his horse home. The former racing correspondent on the Independent tells the story of the men and women who owned and traded and bred the horses descended from that first stallion. He also follows the men they hired to train them, and the jockeys who rode them and sometimes rescued them from the knacker’s yard, unwittingly preserving the genetic line of winners that currently resides with the champion Frankel. Chaired by the producer of the Horse Tales documentaries Corisande Albert.
What’s Macbeth without the witches? Quite possibly the play Shakespeare wrote. Macbeth was not published until after Shakespeare’s death and it is highly likely that it was his great contemporary Thomas Middleton who wrote most of the supernatural scenes. The Goldsmiths Shakespeare scholar will consider the role of the witches in Macbeth; their lasting legacy of psychosexual drama and the problems of ‘normal’ in a play that features a homicidal thane, a woman who wants to be unsexed, and a collection of bearded women babbling on a heath. Chaired by Peter Florence.
The Duchess of Rutland tells the story of the rediscovery of the great landscape designer’s abandoned plans for the Leicestershire estate. In a sumptuously illustrated lecture she shows how the original vision has now been articulated at one of Britain’s most spectacular country houses. Chaired by Rosie Goldsmith.
The tale of a scientist, a physician, his patient and her headache. Professor Huntington from the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research introduces his work on blood coagulation, which helps in devising strategies and therapies for preventing heart disease and strokes.
Richard Suggett is Senior Investigator, Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Wales.
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.
Professor Dilys Williams is Director of Centre for Sustainable Fashion, a University of the Arts Research Centre based at London College of Fashion.
Junk won the prestigious Carnegie Medal and Guardian Children’s Book Prize in 1996. It was criticised for depicting young drug-users. Twenty years on, author Melvin Burgess discusses the book and the controversy that has surrounded it with Julia Eccleshare.
Can Noah and his friends save their wilderness from developers? It’s the place where they make dens and sleep under the stars and they’re prepared to fight to save it. Join the author as she discusses the book and her own passion for preserving and protecting the countryside.
The Courtyard Theatre’s education department will be running ‘a play in a day’ workshop on Romeo and Juliet, designed to inspire and challenge 15- to 16-year-olds. The workshop will cover the whole play but break it down and give attendees the opportunity to explore new ways of bring the text to life –and take part in stage combat. It will end with a performance of the young people’s work. This session is aimed at a hands-on approach to Shakespeare, whether you have never had any interest in his work or are an ardent fan.
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.
Lisa Jones is Professor of Psychological Medicine in the Institute of Health & Society.
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 third of four recitals broadcast live from Hay this week. The trombonist and pianist play Persichetti’s Parable XVIII, Op.133; Lindberg’s Los Bandidos; de Falla’s 7 Canciones Populares Españolas; Dutilleux’ Choral, Cadence et Fugato; Fauré’s Après un rêve, Op.7 No.1, and Sicilienne, Op.78; Guilmant’s Morceau Symphonique, Op.88; and Pryor’s Bluebells of Scotland. The concert is introduced by Clemency Burton-Hill.
The Battle of the Atlantic was crucial to victory in the Second World War. If the German U-boats had prevailed, the maritime artery across the Atlantic would have been severed. Mass hunger would have consumed Britain, and the Allied armies would have been prevented from joining in the invasion of Europe. There would have been no D-Day. Using fascinating contemporary diaries and letters, from the leaders and the sailors on all sides, Dimbleby maps the human stories, the intelligence breakthroughs and the strategic daring of this turning point in European history.
Beneath the waters of Abukir Bay, at the edge of the Nile Delta, lie the submerged remains of the ancient Egyptian cities Canopus and Thonis-Heracleion, which sank more than a thousand years ago. They were dramatically rediscovered in the C20th and brought to the surface by marine archaeologists in the 1990s. The wealth of ancient artefacts from these excavations are now exhibited in the British Museum’s landmark exhibition. The curator tells the story of how two iconic ancient civilisations, Egypt and Greece, interacted in the late first millennium BC.
The consultant cardiac surgeon at Papworth looks at the development of tools to measure how well surgeons and hospitals are performing. He addresses the crucial decisions faced by anyone contemplating a medical intervention: should I keep taking the tablets? Should I have an operation? Which surgeon should I choose? He reveals why requesting a surgeon with the lowest patient mortality rate could be a mistake; how anaesthetists seem to make no difference to the outcome of an operation, but surgeons do; and why patients operated on the day before a surgeon goes on holiday are twice as likely to die as those operated on during that surgeon’s first day back.
Charlotte was a literary visionary, a feminist trailblazer and the driving force behind the whole Brontë family. She pushed Emily to publish Wuthering Heights and took charge of their precarious finances when her feckless brother turned to opium. In Jane Eyre she introduced the world to a brand new kind of heroine, modelled on herself: quiet but fiercely intelligent, burning with passion and potential. Harman is the award-winning biographer of Sylvia Townsend Warner, Fanny Burney and Robert Louis Stevenson, and the author of the best-selling Jane’s Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World. Chaired by Catherine Han of Cardiff University.
Slow Fashion offers creatives, entrepreneurs and ethical consumers a glimpse into the innovative world of the eco-concept store movement. It focuses on sustainable design and businesses that makes people, livelihoods and sustainability central to everything they do. Minney is founder and CEO of fairtrade and sustainable fashion label People Tree. Williams is Director of The Centre for Sustainable Fashion at London College of Fashion.
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.
Under 16s must be accompanied by an adult over 18 years
