Escape the day-to-day at Hay Festival Hay-on-Wye 2024. Join us 23 May–2 June at our free-to-enter Festival site. Explore the full programme and book your individual events below. If you want to see the programme at a glance, please use our schedule view.
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Join Clive Anderson and guests for an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy. With Jan Ravens of Dead Ringers, comedian Nish Kumar, Tiffany Murray on growing up around rock gods in Wales’ residential recording studio and Viv Groskop. There’s music from the Will Barnes Quartet and Aleighcia Scott.
The ecologist, Carwyn Graves discusses our landscape, how we have formed it and how we might continue to do so, in conversation with Welsh presenter and producer Meinir Howells. Graves gives a tour of the Welsh landscape, from the ffridd (mountain pasture) to the rhos (wild moorland). He dives deep into their history and ecology in his book Tir (‘Land’) offering hope for a future with richly biodiverse landscapes, still full of humans working the land.
Is there any coming back from the ways in which capitalism and wealth inequality have shaped the world? Yes, argues Treasury Minister Liam Byrne, but only if we rebuild instead of trying to fix broken systems. Byrne discusses his ideas for radical and meaningful change with writer Oliver Bullough.
Want to reduce waste, use less energy when cooking but still achieve kitchen triumphs? The chef and bestselling food writer (A Modern Way to Eat, One: Pot, Pan, Planet) takes 12 hero ingredients that are guaranteed to make your food taste great, and gives 125 all-new dishes that you’ll want to cook on repeat. Think Double Lemon Pilaf with Buttery Almonds, Traybake Lemon Dhal, Miso Rarebit and Cherry and Chocolate Peanut Butter Sundae. Jones shares tips distilled from her 20 years of experience, with practical advice on layering, texture and seasoning, plus plenty of ideas for vegetarian swaps. She talks to Welsh presenter and producer Meinir Howells.
Join author Gareth E Rees and academic Fiona Stafford on a journey through hidden spaces, forgotten gardens and natural and man-made phenomena that tell us about our past, present and future. Rees is author of Sunken Lands: A Journey through Flooded Kingdoms and Lost Worlds, which uncovers what our submerged past and shifting boundaries between land and water can tell us about our imminent future as rising sea levels transform our planet once more. In Time and Tide: The Long, Long Life of Landscape, Stafford combines local, literary and her own family history to look at the natural and human forces that transform places, and where we can find clues to the past. In conversation with Tom Bullough, author of 5 books, most recently, Sarn Helen - A Journey Through Wales, Past, Present and Future.
Enjoy a special live recording of Radio 4’s flagship satire show featuring topical sketches and characters drawn from the worlds of celebrity and politics.
How can you fight something if you don’t know it exists? We live under an ideology that preys on every aspect of our lives: education, employment, healthcare and leisure; our relationships and mental wellbeing; even the planet we inhabit. So pervasive has it become that it seems unavoidable. But trace it back to its roots, and we discover that neoliberalism was conceived, propagated and concealed by the powerful few. It’s time to bring it into the light – and to find an alternative worth fighting for.
Environmental campaigner George Monbiot's previous book was Regenesis: Feeding the World without Devouring the Planet. His latest is The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism (& How it Came to Control Your Life).
How do you solve a murder, when everyone has the same motive? Magnifying glasses at the ready in this event with the bestselling author of the Detective Hawthorne novels. In the latest, Hawthorne is faced with a seemingly impossible puzzle – a man is shot dead within a quiet, gated community, and it appears that every neighbour has a reason to hate him. Horowitz talks about his characters and his work, which includes two highly acclaimed Sherlock Holmes novels, three James Bond novels, and mystery novel Magpie Murders, recently adapted for the BBC with Lesley Manville.
Thomas Heatherwick – one of the UK’s most prolific designers – talks about his work, characterised by originality, inventiveness and humanity. He founded his studio in 1994 to bring together architecture, urban planning, product design and interiors into a single creative workspace, now comprising 200 makers and inventors. The team is currently working on more than 30 projects in ten countries, including Google's HQ in London. Recently completed are Bay View and Gradient Canopy, Google’s first purpose-built campuses in California, the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town and Coal Drops Yard in London’s King’s Cross. Heatherwick talks to technology entrepreneur and creative leader Suhair Khan.
Few are better placed to discuss how the UK can meet its climate and biodiversity obligations than Chris Skidmore, the former Energy Minister who resigned as an MP in protest at the government’s plans to expand oil and gas production in the North Sea. Skidmore, who was responsible for signing Net Zero into law and chairing Mission Zero, the largest independent engagement exercise on Net Zero conducted to date, outlines the key ways in which the UK can deliver its commitments as part of the global Net Zero strategy, highlighting not just the challenges but also the opportunities for new jobs and investment in a better way of living. In conversation with Nik Gowing, the Founder and Co-Director of Thinking the Unthinkable, and former BBC News Presenter.
Mark Watson's teenage son has just got a phone. His 70-year-old dad has been through the most frightening experience of his life.
Both a dad and a kid himself, around the midpoint of his life, the Taskmaster star and multiple award-winner - now also famous as one-third of YouTube cult sensation No More Jockeys - returns.
He'll consider the search for meaning that we're all on, with or without Google. There'll be a lot of jokes.