Hay Festival 2022

We are delighted to announce the full programme of events for Hay Festival 2022.

Please note: tickets on sale are for live events, to attend in person. You can buy a pass to watch the festival online here.

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Only Friends of Hay Festival may buy tickets prior to public launch. If you are already a Friend please log in here. If you would like to become a Friend, you can do so here.

Event T21

Events taking place live 23 May–2 June 2024

Julian Clary

Stand-up: A Fistful of Clary

Venue: Venue 2
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National trinket Julian Clary is saddled up to welcome you to his new show on a Wild West theme. “It was only a matter of time before I eased myself into some chaps,” he says. He is sure the men in the audience will be eager to join his posse and the lucky few will play with him on stage in the Hang 'em Low saloon, where Wild Bill Hickok used to meet Raving Clarence la Fruit. But life in the Old West was tough. Not all of Julian’s wild bunch will be around to witness the final shoot-out that will result in Julian giving himself selflessly at high noon to the last man standing.

16+ years
Price: £25.00
Only Friends of Hay Festival may buy tickets prior to public launch. If you are already a Friend please log in here. If you would like to become a Friend, you can do so here.

Event T22

Events taking place live 23 May–2 June 2024

Jools Holland and his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra

In Concert

Venue: Venue 1
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Performing tracks spanning his entire solo career, the new show from Jools Holland features 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, the composer, pianist, bandleader and broadcaster presents the greatest boogie-woogie party in town.

There will be a support act followed by a 15 minute interval. The main act will begin at 9.30pm.
Price: £35.00
Only Friends of Hay Festival may buy tickets prior to public launch. If you are already a Friend please log in here. If you would like to become a Friend, you can do so here.

Event T23

Events taking place live 23 May–2 June 2024

Rory Stewart

Politics On the Edge

Venue: Venue 1
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From the former Conservative Cabinet minister and co-presenter of 2022's hit podcast The Rest is Politics, a searing insider's account of ten extraordinary years in Parliament. From 2010-2019, Rory Stewart went from being a political outsider to standing for prime minister – before resigning from a Conservative Party he barely recognised. Tackling ministerial briefs on flood response and prison violence, engaging with conflict and poverty abroad as a foreign minister, and Brexit as a Cabinet minister, Stewart learned first-hand how profoundly hollow and inadequate our democracy and government had become, with cronyism, ignorance and sheer incompetence running rampant.

Price: £15.00
Only Friends of Hay Festival may buy tickets prior to public launch. If you are already a Friend please log in here. If you would like to become a Friend, you can do so here.

Event T24

Events taking place live 23 May–2 June 2024

Marlon James

A Brief History of Seven Killings

Venue: Venue 2
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Ten years after it exploded onto the literary scene, this new edition explores the ongoing cultural and historical fascination with Bob Marley. In Jamaica, 1976, seven gunmen storm his house, machine guns blazing. The superstar survives but the gunmen are never caught. Marlon James' novel reimagines an event that has become a modern myth, as he chronicles the lives of slum kids, one-night stands, drug lords, girlfriends, gunmen, journalists and even the CIA. A Brief History of Seven Killings won the 2015 Man Booker Prize. His other publications include The Book of Night Women and John Crow’s Devil.

Price: £13.00
Only Friends of Hay Festival may buy tickets prior to public launch. If you are already a Friend please log in here. If you would like to become a Friend, you can do so here.

Event T25

Events taking place live 23 May–2 June 2024

Venki Ramakrishnan talks to Adam Rutherford

Why We Die: The New Science of Ageing and the Quest for Immortality

Venue: Venue 1
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The Nobel Prize-winning biologist and former president of the Royal Society explores the science of why and how we age and die. The knowledge of death is so terrifying that we live most of our lives in denial of it, and our fear has underpinned our religions, inspired our cultures, and driven our science. Today giant strides are being made in our understanding of death, and immortality might even be within our grasp. But what are the social and ethical costs of attempting to live for ever? In conversation with the Radio 4 broadcaster and president of the British Humanist Association.

Price: £13.00
Only Friends of Hay Festival may buy tickets prior to public launch. If you are already a Friend please log in here. If you would like to become a Friend, you can do so here.

Event T26

Events taking place live 23 May–2 June 2024

Robin Wall Kimmerer talks to James Rebanks

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

Venue: Venue 2
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The botanist draws on her expertise and experience as an indigenous woman to show how other living beings offer us gifts and lessons, even if we’ve forgotten how to hear their voices. Her subjects range from the Native American legend of the Skywoman to the language of wild strawberries and squash, asters and goldenrod, algae and sweetgrass. This collection of essays weaves together traditional ecological knowledge and scientific knowledge to examine the relationship people have, and can have, with the living environment. Kimmerer lives in New York where she is founder and director of the Centre for Native Peoples and the Environment.

Kimmerer talks to farmer and author James Rebanks.

Price: £13.00
Only Friends of Hay Festival may buy tickets prior to public launch. If you are already a Friend please log in here. If you would like to become a Friend, you can do so here.

Event T27

Events taking place live 23 May–2 June 2024

Dharshini David

Environomics: How the Green Economy Is Transforming Your World

Venue: Venue 2
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Why might an orangutan care which toothpaste you choose? What does your mobile phone have to do with wind turbines? And can your morning coffee really power a bus? Economics affects every aspect of our lives and there are huge changes afoot as the global green revolution speeds up. Dharshini David, Chief Economics Correspondent for BBC News, reveals the green changes already taking place in every aspect of our world, from sustainable materials and corporate greenwashing to industrialisation and global trade wars. David explores the industries of energy, food, fashion, technology, manufacturing and finance, showing how the smallest details in our day can tell a bigger economic story.

Price: £15.00
Only Friends of Hay Festival may buy tickets prior to public launch. If you are already a Friend please log in here. If you would like to become a Friend, you can do so here.

Event T28

Events taking place live 23 May–2 June 2024

Selva Almada, Philippe Sands and Juan Gabriel Vásquez

Explorers, Dreamers and Thieves

Venue: Venue 3
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The British Museum houses more than 60,000 objects from the Americas but only a small percentage have ever been exhibited to the public. To analyse this extensive collection, Hay Festival and the Santo Domingo Centre of Excellence for Latin American Research at the British Museum commissioned six writers, including Juan Gabriel Vásquez (Colombia), Philippe Sands (UK) and Selva Almada (Argentina), with a specialist Museum team to research the documents narrating how certain objects arrived at the institution. These ranged from diaries, letters and sketches to reflections and transactions, with fascinating results.

Price: £11.00
Only Friends of Hay Festival may buy tickets prior to public launch. If you are already a Friend please log in here. If you would like to become a Friend, you can do so here.

Event T29

Events taking place live 23 May–2 June 2024

The Reverend Richard Coles

Murder at the Monastery

Venue: Venue 2
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Daniel Clement has suffered a secret humiliation and to recover, takes respite at the monastery where he was a novice. But there are tensions building there, too, as the dark past of novice master Father Paul emerges, and a murder ensues. Meanwhile back at the village of Champton, Daniel is the subject of gossip, his mother Audrey is up to something again, there's trouble at the dress shop, and the puppies are running riot. This is the third book in the Canon Clement Mystery series from the Anglican priest who co-presented Saturday Live on BBC Radio 4 for 11 years and has won Celebrity Mastermind twice.

Price: £13.00
Only Friends of Hay Festival may buy tickets prior to public launch. If you are already a Friend please log in here. If you would like to become a Friend, you can do so here.

Event T30

Events taking place live 23 May–2 June 2024

Miriam Margolyes

Oh Miriam!: Stories from an Extraordinary Life

Venue: Venue 1
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Ever outspoken, controversial and spectacularly entertaining, Britain's naughtiest national treasure and the author of This Much is True returns with more juicy, jaw-dropping stories from her eventful life and career.

Join us on another unforgettable adventure through the extraordinary life and strong opinions of Miriam Margolyes.

'My new book is called OH MIRIAM! - something that has been said to me a lot over the years, often in tones of strong disapproval. It contains lots more revelations and stories and discoveries and I can't wait to share it with you all!'

From being escorted off the Today programme (for saying what we were all thinking) to declaring her love to Vanessa Redgrave; from Tales of the Unexpected to Graham Norton's sofa, she is our most loved and most outspoken national treasure. Oh Miriam! takes you inside both her head and her heart. Buckle up for the most irrepressible, hilarious and moving read of 2023.
Price: £15.00
Only Friends of Hay Festival may buy tickets prior to public launch. If you are already a Friend please log in here. If you would like to become a Friend, you can do so here.

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