Music

Jools Holland brings his renowned show to Hay Festival, with special guest star Imelda May and featuring the outstanding vocals of Ruby Turner and Louise Marshall, as well as the highly talented Sumudu Jayatilaka. Together with his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra, with original Squeeze member Gilson Lavis on drums and Toby Lee on guitar, Holland performs tracks spanning his entire solo career. The celebrated bandleader, composer and pianist invites you to join him and his orchestra at the greatest boogie-woogie party in town.

Come and join us in the late Georgian-Gothic setting of St Mary’s Church for a special screening of Anthony Asquith’s great 1929 classic silent movie A Cottage on Dartmoor, with live organ accompaniment by Richard Williams. The film is a psycho-thriller replete with obsession and jealousy, much influenced by German Expressionism, and is one of British cinema’s most highly regarded silent films, the last to be made in the silent period.

Father Richard’s film nights are renowned. Parish priest in Hay from 2001 to 2024, he trained as a professional musician at Trinity College of Music, London. Don’t miss this chance to see him perform a live accompaniment on the Bevington organ.

Smokin Jo is one of the most talented DJs to emerge from the British dance music scene, and her undeniably cutting edge sound has carved her a niche in clubland. Join the only female DJ to have won DJ magazine’s DJ of the Year award, for an evening of dance at Hay Festival.

This versatile and “virtuosic” (Sunday Times) piano trio travel around the globe performing their very extensive repertoire. They also broadcast regularly on BBC Radio 3. In the acoustically excellent setting of St Mary’s Church, Darragh Morgan (violin), Tim Gill (cello) and Mary Dulleah (piano) perform Judith Weir: Piano Trio Two and Franz Schubert: Piano Trio No 2 in E-flat major.

Enjoy a half-hour open air performance between events. A crew of local landlubbers singing rollicking, traditional sea shanties in a cappella three-part harmony, as well as other songs on a nautical theme. Enjoyment is guaranteed or else you’ll walk the plank!

Hay Shantymen have been together for over seven years, raising more than £10,000 for the RNLI. They’ve performed widely, including Latitude and Falmouth International Shanty Festival. In 2023 they wrote a shanty of their own (‘Seaweed Revolution’), performed at the Natural History Museum in London. Their album Songs from the Shed is available at hayshantymen.com.

Enjoy a half-hour open air performance between events. A crew of local landlubbers singing rollicking, traditional sea shanties in a cappella three-part harmony, as well as other songs on a nautical theme. Enjoyment is guaranteed or else you’ll walk the plank!

Hay Shantymen have been together for over seven years, raising more than £10,000 for the RNLI. They’ve performed widely, including Latitude and Falmouth International Shanty Festival. In 2023 they wrote a shanty of their own (‘Seaweed Revolution’), performed at the Natural History Museum in London. Their album Songs from the Shed is available at hayshantymen.com.

“And how late it is…” So ended Franz Kafka’s final diary entry, dated 12 June 1923, less than a year before he died on 3 June 1924. The last weekend of this year’s Hay Festival coincides with the 100th anniversary of the last two days of Kafka’s life, a tragic moment in literary history but one also charged with hope, because of his irrepressible spirit and immortal work, which survived despite its author’s wishes.

To mark the centenary, the London Review of Books has mined its remarkable archive to publish a chorus of the different ways its writers have thought about Kafka over the years. This one-off performance is interspersed with readings from Kafka’s own later diary entries, with the voices of special guests accompanied by music from Max Richter’s The Blue Notebooks, itself inspired by Kafka’s journals, played by the celebrated organist James McVinnie.

Simon Armitage’s reinvention of a fairy tale, Hansel & Gretel: A Nightmare in Eight Scenes, was published in 2023. It’s the third book by the Poet Laureate to be illustrated by Clive Hicks-Jenkins, following Sir Gawain & the Green Knight in 2018 and The Owl and the Nightingale in 2021.

The Poet Laureate and the artist/illustrator hold a conversation with pictures, talking about their experiences of working together and reading favourite passages from the three books. Hicks-Jenkins directed and designed the music theatre production with actors and puppets of Armitage’s Hansel & Gretel when it premiered in 2018, and two members of the original cast make a special appearance.

Do you want to introduce your children to the magic and wonders of a festival, but can’t face the muddy fields? Then DJ Rob da Bank, co-founder of Camp Bestival, is here to help. He shares tips, activities and ideas to keep the whole family inspired all year round and recreate the magical ethos of the festival at home, with campfire singalongs, family raves, kitchen discos and more.

Join legendary DJ Rob da Bank for a set at Hay Festival. Grab some drinks at the Festival Bar and settle in for his eclectic mix of audio loveliness from techno to chillwave, covering a spectrum of leftfield music, new and old.

Da Bank is co-founder of music festivals Bestival and Camp Bestival, and after a hugely successful career at BBC Radio 1, he joined the 6 Mix Resident roster. Aside from radio and festivals, da Bank is creator of the Sunday Best label which has released music by David Lynch, Dan le Sac & Scroobius Pip, Valerie June, Dub Pistols and Beardyman.

Enjoy this half-hour open air performance between events. Got 2 Sing Choir perform uplifting songs from top of the charts to golden oldies, with plenty of fun and laughter.

Enjoy this half-hour open air performance between events. Got 2 Sing Choir perform uplifting songs from top of the charts to golden oldies, with plenty of fun and laughter.

Jones and Murray discuss their memoirs, both captivating accounts of unusual lives in late twentieth century Britain, in which celebrities pop up regularly. Jones grew up in 1970s London, spending the next decade building a glittering career as a newspaper editor leading up to his multi-award-winning tenure at GQ. In These Foolish Things he reflects on how he sought to stir up music, politics and fashion. In My Family and Other Rock Stars, Murray recounts a freewheeling whirlwind of a childhood in the late 1970s, living with her mum, a Cordon Bleu chef, at the iconic recording studio Rockfield. At this place of legend, where some of the most famous rock albums of all time were recorded, the chances of bumping into Freddie Mercury or David Bowie were as normal as hopscotch and homework.

Absorb the unexpected sounds of this genre-splicing supergroup, whose members are current UK Poet Laureate Simon Armitage, producer and multi-instrumentalist Patrick Pearson and musician Richard Walters. Their two critically acclaimed albums, Call In The Crash Team and The Ultraviolet Age, have garnered over five million streams, and their UK tours have included major festivals such as Green Man and Blu Dot. Specialising in collaborations with many different kinds of artists – in 2020 they released ‘Lockdown’ featuring actor Florence Pugh, to raise money for the charity Refuge, and in 2023 performed a commission in tandem with Easington Colliery Band in County Durham – their memorable style always takes songs, melodies and words for its foundation stones.