Hay Festival 2024

Faced with family dramas, political crises and questions about the future of the monarchy in Britain and elsewhere, the new King has had no shortage of challenges to face including, most recently, his cancer diagnosis. Robert Hardman, writer and co-producer of the BBC documentary Charles III: The Coronation Year, gives his insight into the life of our current monarch, including looking at the role played by Queen Camilla and the monarchy’s role on the world stage.

Hardman has been a member of the BBC commentary team at all the major state occasions of recent times and is the author of several international bestsellers, including Queen of Our Times: The Life of Elizabeth II. His latest book is Charles III.

Nigerian writer Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀’s debut novel Stay With Me was shortlisted for the Baileys Prize for Women’s Fiction and the Wellcome Book Prize. Discussing her latest novel A Spell of Good Things – longlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize – Adébáyọ̀ shines her light on the gaping divide between the haves and the have-nots in Nigeria, and the shared humanity that lies in between. Eniola spends his days running errands for the local tailor, collecting newspapers and begging, dreaming of a big future. Wuraola is a golden girl, the perfect child of a wealthy family. When sudden violence shatters a family party, Wuraola and Eniola’s lives collide.

Join Leusa Llewelyn, Artistic Director of Literature Wales, as she speaks to four of the authors shortlisted for the 2024 Wales Book of the Year Awards. The writers discuss their work and explore the wider context of literature in Wales today. Gain an introduction to some of Wales’ best writers, whose names will be revealed when the shortlist is announced in early May. The winners will be announced later this summer at the Awards Ceremony on 4 July.

The Wales Book of the Year Awards are the national literary awards celebrating outstanding creative talent in Welsh and English across fiction, poetry, non-fiction, creative non-fiction and writing for children and young people. Established in the late 1960s, the awards have since 2011 been run by Literature Wales, the national charity for the development of literature.

Explore the seductive and scandalous life of Lord Byron through a performance of his extraordinary narrative poem, Don Juan. Pianist Clare Hammond and actor Tama Matheson, using music by Felix Mendelssohn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Hélène de Montgeroult, William Grant Still and Isaac Albéniz, celebrate Byron’s inimitable wit in this bicentenary year of his death.

Apparently caterpillars completely break down into goo before they become butterflies. Come and join comedian Sara Pascoe as she reconsiders and reconstructs herself after having two babies and very little sleep.

The multi-award-winning comedian, writer and actor has appeared in BBC stand up special LadsLadsLads and her own BBC2 sitcom Out of Her Mind. She hosts The Great British Sewing Bee (BBC2), Last Woman on Earth (BBC), Comedians Giving Lectures (Day) and Guessable (Comedy Central). Pascoe wrote and starred in the BBC Radio 4 series Modern Monkey and the BBC2 short Sara Pascoe vs Monogamy, inspired by her first book, Animal. Her second book, Sex Power Money, was a Sunday Times bestseller, and the accompanying podcast has garnered millions of listens and multiple award nominations.

The American novelist joins us for a conversation about the TV adaptation of his 2016 novel. He discusses the story and its re-presentation, with clips from the Paramount+ limited series starring Emmy Award-winning actor Ewan McGregor.

In A Gentleman in Moscow, a Russian aristocrat in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution finds that his gilded past places him on the wrong side of history. Spared immediate execution, he is banished by a Soviet tribunal to an attic room in the opulent Hotel Metropol, threatened with death if he ever sets foot outside again. As the years pass and some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history unfold outside the hotel’s doors, the Count’s reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery. As he builds a new life within the walls of the hotel, he discovers the true value of friendship, family and love.

The hit musical Hadestown has recently opened in London’s West End, after an epic journey from Canada to Broadway, winning eight Tony Awards on the way. In this special event, Hadestown creator Anaïs Mitchell and members of the UK cast introduce us to the musical and perform excerpts from the show. Mitchell shares stories about the show’s early years and answers questions about its inception and its runaway success.

Hadestown intertwines two love stories in the underworld of Greek mythology – that of young dreamers Orpheus and Eurydice, and that of King Hades and his wife Persephone. Grammy-winning singer-songwriter and BBC Radio 2 Folk Award-winner Mitchell originated Hadestown as an indie theatre project and album. She then transformed the show into a genre-defying new musical, picking up a Tony Award for Best Musical and a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theatre Album. Blending modern American folk music with New Orleans-inspired jazz, it is one of the most streamed cast albums of all time.