Hay Festival 2022 – Arts & Culture

The House of Atreus is cursed. A bloodline tainted by a generational cycle of violence and vengeance. This is the story of three women, their fates inextricably tied to this curse. In a world ruled by gods and men, the voices of strong women have been silenced. Until now. An ancient story of love and sisterhood, Elektra is a spellbinding reimagining of Greek myth with a fresh perspective on the Trojan War. Jennifer Saint’s Ariadne was a Sunday Times top ten bestseller and shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year.

Foraging is one of the fastest-growing nature-related pastimes in the UK and US. Profiling 40 incredible trees from apple to yew in The Tree Forager, Adele Nozedar takes us on a foraging journey through their beauty, wildlife, folklore and medicinal uses. Tracing the fascinating story of the intimate relationship between humankind and our trees, we also celebrate the 10th anniversary of Adele’s first foraging book, The Hedgerow Handbook, launched at Hay Festival in 2012. Adele is joined by botanical illustrator Lizzie Harper who has brought both books to life with vivid watercolour, pen and ink. They talk to Hay Festival’s Sustainability Director.

Premonitions are impossible. But they come true all the time. What if you knew that something terrible was going to happen? What if you could share your vision? Could these forebodings help the world to prevent disasters? In 1966 John Barker, a dynamic psychiatrist working in an outdated British mental hospital, established the Premonitions Bureau to investigate these questions. He would find a network of hundreds of correspondents, from bank clerks to ballet teachers. Among them were two unnervingly gifted ‘percipients’. Together, the pair predicted plane crashes, assassinations and international incidents with uncanny accuracy. And then, they informed Barker of their most disturbing premonition: that he was about to die.

Sam Knight’s The Premonitions Bureau is an enthralling true story, of madness and wonder, science and the supernatural — a journey into the oddest corners of ‘60s Britain and the most powerful and unsettling reaches of the human mind. He talks to LBC radio host Matt Stadlen.

For millennia the rose has played a significant role in religion, the legal system, politics and all the arts from Europe right across to the Far East. It is a symbol of love and beauty, an important ingredient in the culinary and cosmetic worlds, and a medicine to cure both physical and psychological ailments. In the garden too it plays a crucial role and, with its long flowering period, beautiful blooms and wonderful fragrance, is one of the most garden-worthy and versatile of all plants.

Explore the central role roses play both in our everyday lives and in our gardens with leading rosarian Michael Marriott.

From her punk days growing up in Southampton, to revolutionising the bridal industry, Jenny Packham takes us on her journey to find inspiration from a Paris flea market and the vintage stores of LA. She pieces together her life, and a career filled with a passion for exquisite clothes, with her brother Chris, the naturalist and TV presenter.

Peter Finch is one of Britain’s leading poets. His blending of the avant-garde, concrete, visual, sound, performance and more conventional forms has placed him at the cutting edge of contemporary poetry. He probes tradition and experiment with author and presenter Jon Gower in this event celebrating his remarkable career.

Join Andy Zaltzman for a recording of Radio 4’s flagship topical comedy show as he grabs the week’s headlines and hurls them at four of the nation’s best comedians and journalists including Paul Sinha and Angela Barnes.

A new collaboration with Shakespeare’s Globe brings nine performances of Julius Caesar to a specially commissioned open-air theatre at the newly renovated Hay Castle. The travelling company of actors, will bring to life Shakespeare’s political thriller with a stripped back production made fresh for our world today.

Touring has been a longstanding tradition at Shakespeare’s Globe in London, since the tours of the Elizabethan Lord Chamberlain’s Men. Shakespeare’s versatile troupe toured frequently in the summer especially when there was a plague or political unrest. Shakespeare’s Globe has now established a world renowned reputation for highly ambitious and economical Shakespearean storytelling in the rough and ready fashion of Elizabethan times.

“We are so delighted to be able to finally come to the Hay Festival to perform against the breath-taking backdrop of Hay Castle.” – Shakespeare’s Globe

Click here to pre-book a delicious picnic box to enjoy during the performance.

Kate Rusby is often hailed as the ‘first lady of folk’. Announcing herself to the music press in 1999 with a nomination for the Mercury Music Prize, she has forged an impressive 30-year career, breaking records and headlining everywhere from the Royal Albert Hall to Cambridge Folk Festival.

A remarkable interpretive singer, Kate’s soulful vocals resonate with the wistful beauty of an earthbound angel. Inhabiting a lyric with unforced conviction – no matter how old or how modern – she has that rare ability to transport her audience, touching them emotionally and making each tune live vividly within their experience and imagination.

You’re sure to be thoroughly entertained by Kate’s choice of much-loved classics from her back catalogue stretching over the past 30 years of music making, together with a selection of fresh songs from her most recent albums and new releases. Rusby’s wondrous singing, hugely engaging Yorkshire wit and the intuitive support of the band ensure a truly remarkable and unforgettable concert experience.

Photographers John Bulmer and Billie Charity talk about their photo books, shot in the Marches. John’s A Very English Village was shot 50 years ago in Pembridge and Billie’s Lockdown Light captured lockdown in and around Hay. They discuss the changes five decades have wrought both in the subjects and the process of taking photographs and publishing them in book form.

Are universities losing the culture war? From the doctors and nurses in our hospitals to the teachers in our schools and the scientists developing vaccines, universities train the professionals who form the backbone of our society. So why, in recent times, have universities fallen out of favour with Government ministers and the media? What can the sector do to prove its worth and help the nation in the recovery from the pandemic and beyond?

Diana Beech is CEO of London Higher, Richard Brabner is Director of UPP Foundation, Jane Britton is Director of Communications and External Affairs at the University of Worcester and David Green is their Vice Chancellor.

Join the audience for a recording of Sky Arts Big Weekend, a 90-minute TV programme featuring interviews and conversations with some of the biggest and best names at the Festival. The programmes will air across the weekend of 10–12 June on Sky Arts (Freeview Channel 11), Sky Arts HD and Now. Studio guests include Anthony Horowitz, Jeffrey Boakye, Laurie Penny, Alexis Caught and Cressida Cowell.

Throughout another year of bluster and bedlam in Westminster, John Crace’s brilliantly acerbic political sketches have once more provided the nation with a much-needed injection of humour and satire. In A Farewell to Calm the Guardian’s parliamentary sketch writer introduces an infectiously funny selection of his finest pieces and talks to journalist Max Liu about everything from Covid to Partygate and Brexit to war in Ukraine.

“It’s now becoming easier and easier to predict government policy. Just listen to what the prime minister said in the morning and the opposite is likely to be true come the middle of the afternoon.”

Dame Jacqueline Wilson is the highly acclaimed and adored author of so many stories for young people including The Story of Tracy Beaker and Hetty Feather. She is praised for her engaging, warm, funny and insightful take on subjects from adoption to divorce and children in care. She will be in lively conversation with John Wilson about the most formative influences on her writing life for a special edition of BBC Radio 4’s This Cultural Life.

In this spoken-word event PJ Harvey recites poems from her new book and discusses the lyric line with renowned British poet and writer Paul Farley. Orlam reveals Harvey as a gifted poet – whose formal skill and transforming eye and ear have produced a strange and moving poem like no other. Orlam is not only a remarkable coming-of-age tale, but the first full-length book written in the Dorset dialect for many decades.

Jeffrey Boakye was often the only black boy in his class. And then, after training to become a teacher, he was often teaching the handful of black students, as the only black teacher in the school. In I Heard What You Said, Boakye recounts how that felt and how it feels. His report exposes the underlying habits, presumptions, silences and distortions that underpin the whole British educational system that black students, and teachers, experience. He offers sharp analysis, sharp patter and even sharper hopes for what might come, to writer and critic Chris Power.

A God at the Door, by poet and dancer Tishani Doshi, is an exquisite collection about nature and humanity to elevate the marginalised. Paul Farley’s latest eclectic poetry collection The Mizzy ranges from confusing encounters with tech, modernity and its accelerated rate of change, to the lives of others and their strange occupations. Conversation and readings with the founder of National Poetry Day and the Forward Prize, William Sieghart.

A new collaboration with Shakespeare’s Globe brings nine performances of Julius Caesar to a specially commissioned open-air theatre at the newly renovated Hay Castle. The travelling company of actors, will bring to life Shakespeare’s political thriller with a stripped back production made fresh for our world today.

Touring has been a longstanding tradition at Shakespeare’s Globe in London, since the tours of the Elizabethan Lord Chamberlain’s Men. Shakespeare’s versatile troupe toured frequently in the summer especially when there was a plague or political unrest. Shakespeare’s Globe has now established a world renowned reputation for highly ambitious and economical Shakespearean storytelling in the rough and ready fashion of Elizabethan times.

“We are so delighted to be able to finally come to the Hay Festival to perform against the breath-taking backdrop of Hay Castle.” – Shakespeare’s Globe

Click here to pre-book a delicious picnic box to enjoy during the performance.

A Grammy Award-winning pianist, composer, educator and social activist, Danilo Pérez is one of the most influential and dynamic musicians of our time. His music blends Panamanian roots with elements of Latin American folk music, jazz, European impressionism, West Africa, and other musical heritages that seek harmony as a multi-dimensional bridge among peoples.

As a solo artist and collaborator with jazz giants ranging from Dizzy Gillespie to Wayne Shorter, he has been hailed as one of the most creative forces in contemporary music.

Pérez is the paragon of an international jazz citizen and visionary leader who believes that a united global perspective for the arts and social justice is key to moving humanity forward in harmony. Currently, he serves as a UNESCO Artist For Peace, Cultural Ambassador to the Republic of Panama, and Founder and Artistic Director of the Panama Jazz Festival and Berklee Global Jazz Institute.

His latest release Crisálida opens new formations that explore all dimensions of the process of creation. In this search for the unexpected, Pérez brings Global Jazz Womxn from the prestigious Berklee Global Jazz Institute. He visualizes Crisálida as a protected multicultural platform where we can creatively address issues of immigration, climate change, environmental justice and social justice. Global Jazz Womxn are Patricia Zárate Pérez from Chile on sax, Francesca Remigi from Italy on drums and Ciara Paula Moser from Austria on electric bass.

There are categories of intimate writing which modern technology has rendered obsolete. Keats sealed his letters to his beloved with a kiss. Whoever did that to an email in the age of electronic Valentines? Who, nowadays, keeps a private written journal? It’s all up there in the cloudy Diary in the Sky. Until well into the 20th century young men and women carried ‘autograph books’ for sketches, verbal and pictorial, by friends. They now only exist as relics on eBay. Is intimate writing a dead letter – as obsolete as the quill pen? Not entirely. John Crace has revived the political sketch, diary and (highly personalised) critical ‘digest’.

John Sutherland has written intimate memoirs (one of which, his struggle with alcoholism, he regrets publishing). He recently met himself – sixty years younger – in his university tutor’s voluminous letters about him to Philip Larkin. It inspired his latest book, Monica Jones, Philip Larkin and Me.

The Two Johns discuss intimacy in public and personal writing – the difference between writing with one eye on publication and for oneself alone – and where, in an era of grams, selfies and tweeting it can go. And have fun while doing so.