Hay Festival Winter Weekend 2023

Laugh your socks off and take part in a singalong with comedian, writer and actor Matt Lucas in this interactive event to introduce his new children’s book.

The Boy Who Slept Through Christmas is about Leo, a boy who wishes away Christmas. But when he wakes up to find Christmas really has disappeared, Leo sets out on a mission to undo his wish.

Lucas has recorded 20 original songs to accompany the book, bringing the joy of a musical to book form. Join Lucas for a singalong in this early festive treat.

He talks to children’s author Jenny Valentine.

Severed heads that can still talk, cauldrons with attitude, birds that can tell the future – the world of Welsh mythology is full of magic, heroes, tricksters and more.

In Enchanted Wales, Miranda Aldhouse-Green takes readers on a voyage through the key stories of Welsh mythic literature, and explores their ancient roots. The stories within Aldhouse-Green’s book explore our deepest questions about life and death, war and peace, and good and evil.

Storyteller Daniel Morden, the author of Strange Tales, brings the tales from Enchanted Wales to life.

Aldhouse-Green is professor emeritus at Cardiff University. A former president of the Prehistoric Society, she was the first recipient of the John Legonna Celtic Research Prize, awarded by the National Library of Wales in 1986.

Prepare to be charmed, chilled and thrilled as Daniel Morden tells strange stories of the supernatural by candlelight in the evocative setting of Hay Castle’s Great Hall.

Morden has been telling traditional stories for more than 30 years, and weird tales are a particular speciality.

His books include Dark Tales from the Woods and Strange Tales. In 2017 Morden was awarded the Hay Festival Medal for his services to storytelling.

Prepare to be spellbound as Stephen Fry introduces a new, illustrated, edition of his bestselling Mythos, which retells the stories of Greek heroes and deities.

Fry perfectly captures some of the best known myths, from the birth of Athena to the story of King Midas, for the modern age. Fry shows how these stories, passed down through millennia and inspiring writers and artists from Shakespeare to Walt Disney, are rich and deeply relevant to our lives.

Fry, president of the Hay Festival, is an award-winning comedian, actor, presenter and director. He is the bestselling author of four novels as well as three volumes of autobiography. Mythos, Heroes and Troy, his retelling of the Greek myths, are all bestsellers.