Hay Festival 2023

Visionary singer, cultural ambassador and epic storyteller Baaba Maal performs his definitive tracks and music from his latest album, Being. Born in Senegal, and growing up inspired by indigenous African music, American R&B, soul, jazz, reggae and blues, Maal defied expectation to become a musician. Through the 1970s and 1980s he developed a distinctive sound that fused traditional African instruments with an adventurous electronic approach. He has collaborated with artists including Mumford & Sons, and helped Ludwig Goransson create the sound of Marvel’s Afrofuturistic Black Panther films.

Vallance became a familiar face to many during the pandemic lockdowns, offering jargon-free knowledge and reassurance to the public at a time of uncertainty. He talks to doctor and journalist Clarke about why we should collectively and persistently care about science, advocating for citizens to demand that the government always consider science all the time. Vallance was the government’s chief scientific adviser and national technology adviser until April this year. He had a prominent role during the pandemic and has led the enhancement of science, technology and innovation capability within government.

Celebration Day on 28 May is an initiative to put aside one day a year to celebrate people we’ve lost and have loved or have had a huge impact on our lives. To talk about why we need new ways of talking about death and grief, our panel discuss their experience of loss.

In 2006, Mackintosh and her husband took the difficult decision to remove life support from their critically ill son and her novel After the End explores this situation through the filter of fiction. Her memoir I Promise it Won’t Always Hurt Like This: 18 Assurances on Grief will be published in 2024. James McConnel is a musician, composer and performer, part of the Kit & McConnel cabaret act, and author of Life Interrupted, about growing up in the shadow of the death of his sister. His cabaret partner Kit Hesketh-Harvey recently passed, and he lost his 18-year-old son to heroin. Yousefzada is a writer, artist and designer who recently published a memoir, The Go-Between. He is also working on a series of poems and a new book about grief following the death of his mother a year ago. Pickering is a speaker and grief investigator who lost her eldest son Harry in 2000. She is author of When Grief Equals Love.

There is one question that Butler-Gallie is asked regularly: “What made you become a priest?” Talking to journalist and editor Alex Clark about his irreverent memoir Touching Cloth: A Year in the Life of a Young Priest, he reveals what it’s like to become a young priest in the 21st century, correcting misconceptions about his vocation with humour and a light touch. From sharing stories about unusual problems with parishioners to how to keep a straight face when someone is inadvertently hot-boxing a funeral, Butler-Gaillie’s book is also a love letter to the Church of England and to the community of people who keep it going.

Broadcaster, classicist and comedian Natalie Haynes takes us on a fast-paced tour through the history of Medusa and shows how to survive contact with someone who can turn you to stone with a glance.

A ‘rock star mythologist’ in the words of the Washington Post, Haynes is well-versed in taking a fresh look at the ancient world for her BBC Radio 4 show Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics. Her stand-up routines about figures from ancient Greece and Rome bring a new comedy to the world of retellings. Haynes’ books include A Thousand Ships, shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her new show Stone Blind is inspired by her latest novel of the same name.

Start your day with a morning yoga class designed to reinvigorate your energy and spirit. Enjoy a grounding, energising, alignment‐based yoga practice, using the breath and sound to rediscover and rejuvenate the body and mind. Beginners and experienced students are most welcome. Yoga mats and props are provided.

Please contact Kanga Wellbeing on spa@kangaevents.com for any questions relating to these classes. As capacity is limited, we recommend booking in advance to avoid disappointment.

Bring your best ideas to this solutions-focused workshop session. Facilitated by sustainability entrepreneur Andy Middleton, Chief Exploration Officer at the TYF Group, and joined by key speakers to be announced, we’ll look at the key issue of food. We’ll discuss the scale of the issue and a range of solutions, how to action them, how they might impact on their lives and how to manage the change.

Food supplies are under intense pressure and what we’ve taken for granted is no longer guaranteed. To continue functioning, local economies and sustainable livelihoods must be able to thrive, both in the UK and all producer countries. Plant and animal diversity, as well as the welfare of farmed and wild species, must be protected. How can we design a food production system that reverses damage to nature and restores climate balance?

This workshop is part of our Hay Festival Planet Assembly, a daily, inclusive conversation over ten days involving lay people, scientists, commentators and experts. We want to empower everyone to be accelerators and multipliers for the dramatic policy transformations that are needed immediately to tackle the acute climate and biodiversity emergencies.

Sign up to our free Planet Assembly daily briefing.

Come to Andrew and Rachel Giles’ farm with local vet Barney Sampson and agronomist Jonathon Harrington to see how their herd of dairy cows produce most of their milk from grass. You can enter the milking parlour and help to milk some of the cows, as well as see the young calves. Learn how the cows are fed and find out how their four stomachs enable them to digest grass. You can taste samples of the dairy products, and a local cheese maker will explain the art and science beneath the rind.

With thanks to Andrew & Rachel Giles for welcoming us to their farm.

Please wear walking boots or Wellingtons and waterproof clothing in case of inclement weather. These are visits to real working farms and are suitable for anyone interested in learning more about food and farming. Families are welcome but children must be supervised at all times.

There are few people better placed than Kate Bingham, Ilan Gur and Patrick Vallance to look at the future of the NHS and the role of science. As chair of the UK Vaccine Taskforce, Bingham was responsible for making sure the Covid-19 vaccine was administered as fast as possible to as many people as possible, a task she recounts in The Long Shot. Ilan Gur is CEO of Aria, a research and development funding agency working to further the UK’s world-class research capacities and supporting transformative science to change the way we live. Vallance served as the government’s chief scientific adviser until April this year, and became a familiar and reassuring face to many during the Covid-19 lockdowns. As we discuss and debate the future of the NHS in its 75th year, the trio look at how science must be central to any future systemic design of the NHS, and why it should be a central principle influencing how the NHS develops in the future to meet the needs of contemporary society.

Having spent a lifetime studying Europe, Timothy Garton Ash gives his account of a period of unprecedented progress on the continent, calling on citizens to understand and defend what we have collectively achieved in conversation. In conversation with writer and Imperial War Museum rector Misha Glenny, Garton Ash shares vivid experiences from his book Homelands, including his father's memories of D-Day, interviewing Polish dockers, Albanian guerrillas in the mountains of Kosovo, and angry teenagers in the poorest quarters of Paris, as well as advising prime ministers, chancellors and presidents.

Guides from the Brecon Beacons National Park will lead a gentle walk through the beautiful surrounds of Hay-on-Wye, joined by the BBNP Writer in Residence Rebecca Thomas.

Hay-on-Wye is based within 520 square miles of beautiful landscape that makes up Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) National Park. The National Park is driving change to bring about a sustainable future, meeting our needs within planetary boundaries. Their Hay Festival series of gentle walks will take you into the town’s local environment while offering the opportunity to learn more about the Park’s work and its treasured landscape.

Please wear appropriate footwear and outdoor gear.

It’s 60 years since the publication of John Burningham’s touching tale, Borka: The Adventures of a Goose with No Feathers. One of the goslings in Mr & Mrs Plumpster’s gaggle is born looking a bit different. Borka has no feathers and cannot fly. When winter comes the other geese fly off in search of warmer climates, leaving Borka all alone. Can she find her own place in the world?

Performing arts company Ignite Music celebrates the anniversary with a magical children’s opera based on Burningham’s book, by Tim Yealland and Russell Hepplewhite, including live music, puppetry and digital animation.

The story of animation stretches back to the early 1800s with the invention of spinning optical illusion devices such as the zoetrope. These days animation is everywhere from animated films, cartoons and GIFs to computer games and VR. But how did we get here? Learn about the origins of early animation and create your own loopy animation in this fun, hands-on workshop led by visual artists MASH Cinema.

Come and join Rooted Forest School for outdoor family sessions inspired by the Forest School approach. We’ll use foraged materials to craft natural items that you can take away with you, taking part in some simple tool use and finishing off with a hot apple juice around the fire. These sessions are aimed at families and will run whatever the weather, so make sure you’re wrapped up for the conditions.

An opportunity to get crafting! Activities differ every day, including everything from print-making to junk modelling with recycled materials. Get messy and creative: your imagination is the limit.

Book for the session and you can drop in at any point during the 2.5 hour duration. Accompanying adults: please stay in attendance at all times, but you do not require a ticket.

Find out how master storyteller Kingsolver reimagined Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield for her new novel, placing her version in the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia. Demon Copperhead, who gives the book its title, is born to a single mother in a single-wide trailer, in an area where poverty is all around, and the opioid crisis is striking neighbours, parents and friends. Demon craves affection and safety – and a glimpse of the ocean – and his tale of love and loss shows just how he’ll travel to try and get there. Kingsolver has been shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize, and in 2010 won what is now the Women’s Prize for fiction for her novel The Lacuna.

There will not be a book signing after this event.

Journalist Daniel Finkelstein’s family story is one of miraculous survival against the 20th century’s two genocidal dictators. His grandfather Alfred is now widely acknowledged to have been the first person to recognise the existential danger Hitler posed to the Jews, and with his family was sent to Bergen-Belsen, while his father’s family was sent to do hard labour in a Siberian gulag. In Hitler, Stalin, Mum & Dad, Finkelstein, who serves in the House of Lords, shares his family’s extraordinary, often painful and hellish history through concentration camps, the Gulag, secret archives and freezing wastelands, to eventual happiness and safety. He talks to Philippe Sands, author of East West Street and The Ratline.

Explore the political, cultural and mythical history of Wales, and get a glimpse of what lies ahead for us all when it comes to climate change, with writers Tom Bullough and Julie Brominicks. In Sarn Helen, Bullough takes us on a walk along Sarn Helen – Helen’s Causeway – the old Roman Road that runs from the south of Wales to the north, weaving in conversations with climate scientists and showing the likely impact of climate change on Wales, while Brominicks celebrates the language, landscape, peoples and biodiversity of Cymru past and present in The Edge of Cymru, exploring themes of belonging and cymreictod (Welshness), trying to find clarity, courage and possibility in the environmental crisis.

Prepare yourself for an exciting prehistoric adventure with TV scientist Garrod, exploring the biggest, deadliest and weirdest predators that ever roamed the planet. Garrod’s unique mix of humour and science will shine a new light on the ever popular world of dinosaurs. Garrod is professor of evolutionary biology and science engagement at the University of East Anglia, and worked with Sir David Attenborough on the BBC’s Attenborough and the Mammoth Graveyard documentary.

Come and join Rooted Forest School for outdoor family sessions inspired by the Forest School approach. We’ll use foraged materials to craft natural items that you can take away with you, taking part in some simple tool use and finishing off with a hot apple juice around the fire. These sessions are aimed at families and will run whatever the weather, so make sure you’re wrapped up for the conditions.