Hay Festival 2025 Full Programme

Presenter June Sarpong OBE, the BBC’s first Director of Creative Diversity, shines a light on the incredible forgotten legacy of the BBC’s first Black female broadcaster.

Una Marson was a trailblazer: she made history by becoming the first Black female broadcaster at the BBC and paved the way for Black women and the amplification of Black voices in the media. A journalist, poet, playwright, broadcaster and activist, Marson played a pivotal role in bringing Caribbean culture to audiences in the UK, smashing glass ceilings and fighting against the racism and misogyny she faced. She was a fierce political activist throughout her life.

The International Booker Prize is the world’s most influential prize for translated fiction. It’s awarded annually for a single book translated into English and celebrates the vital work of translation with the £50,000 prize money divided equally between author and translator. In championing works from around the world that have originated in a wide range of languages, it fosters an engaged global community of writers and readers whose experiences and interests transcend national borders.

The prize will be announced on 20 May, and we present the winning author and translator in conversation with the chief executive of the Booker Prize Foundation, Gaby Wood, and one of this year’s judges, author and International Booker Prize-shortlisted translator, Anton Hur.

Writer Lamorna Ash explores why younger people in search of nourishment for the soul are turning to religion. Ash was raised with about as much Christianity as most people in Britain these days: a basic knowledge of hymns and prayers received via a Church of England primary school education and occasional brushes with religious services.

But when she started writing about her two friends’ unexpected conversions, she began encountering a recurring phenomenon: in an age of disconnection and apathy, a new generation was discovering religion for itself. In her book Don’t Forget We’re Here Forever, Ash explores why younger people are turning to religion, and meets those wrestling with Christianity today.

Ash’s first book Dark, Salt, Clear won a Somerset Maugham Award and was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize.

Drop the mic! Award-winning teacher, Sky Kids superstar, World Book Day ambassador and viral book-rapping sensation MC Grammar heads to Hay to introduce his brand-new series, The Adventures of Rap Kid.

Get ready to meet Z, his beatboxing sidekick SFX, their super-slick teacher Mr G, and his dawg Pup Smoke, in a story about friendship, the power of words and finding your voice.

Grab your bling and your shades and make your way to this epic event jam-packed with jokes, bangin' tunes, wicked rhymes, a sick rap battle, and the greatest dance-off of all time!

Join the author of The Rachel Incident and All Our Hidden Gifts, Caroline O’Donoghue, to hear about her new fantasy romance with a sci-fi twist, Skipshock. When Margo boards a train to her new school, she could never have expected a time slip into the chill of an alien winter. Margo and Moon were on two different trains, in two different worlds. They never should have met – but they did. And now they are running out of time. Will Margo manage to find a way home, or will she choose to stay in a world where she may have found the only person with whom she would choose to spend eternity?

Caroline’s The Rachel Incident is being adapted for television by Universal Studios, and her hit podcast Sentimental Garbage has had over 9 million downloads worldwide.

Please bring your own notebook and pen to this event.

An opportunity to get crafting! Activities differ every day, including everything from print-making to junk modelling with recycled materials. Get messy and creative in these interactive sessions delivered by artists and discover that your imagination is the only limit.

Book for the session and you can drop in at any point during the 1.5 hour duration. Accompanying adults: please stay in attendance at all times, but you do not require a ticket.

Come to the Family Garden for a pizza masterclass with Kitchen Garden Pizza. In this one-hour session your imagination and creativity will be fed along with your belly! You’ll get your hands messy with freshly grown and foraged ingredients, make and top your own dough and observe the pizzaioli at work at the wood-fired oven.

Dairy-free and gluten-free options available.

Enjoy this twenty-minute open air performance between events. Love To Sing Choir was created in January 2024. Their first public performance saw them win Gold at the Herefordshire Performing Arts Festival, only six weeks after they formed! The choir has performed at many events including Ludlow Fringe Festival and Applefest in Hereford, and in the musical Make Good: The Post Office Scandal.

Celebrating the 80th anniversary of VE Day, historians James Holland (Normandy ’44) and Al Murray (Command) tell the unflinching story of the eight surrenders – from the Italian Alps to northern Germany, London, New York, Washington and Tokyo – that brought victory to the Allies and ended the Second World War.

What took place during the negotiations of those surrenders and the terms that were agreed there would determine the directions that participating countries would take in the years that followed, and ultimately decide the shape of our world today.

Holland and Murray together host the popular World War II podcast We Have Ways of Making You Talk. Murray is also known as his comic alter ego, The Pub Landlord.

OCD is often used as a shorthand for tidiness or as the punchline of a joke, but obsessive compulsive disorder is one of society’s most misunderstood conditions. Actor Tuppence Middleton has lived with OCD since the age of 11, struggling with obsessive thoughts and compulsions which she visualises as scorpions inhabiting her mind.

In this candid event, Middleton will talk about her diagnosis, how OCD manifests in her life, and discuss her memoir Scorpions, a visceral and uncompromising look at living with OCD. Middleton works in film, television and theatre; she starred in Netflix’s Sense8 and had roles in The Imitation Game and Shadowplay.

From school onwards, we accept there is a separation between art and mathematics. But what if we’re wrong? Marcus du Sautoy argues that maths and art may not be polar opposites after all, and that their complementary relationship spans a vast historical and geographic landscape, from the earliest stone circles to Mozart’s obsession with numbers and the radically modern architecture of Zaha Hadid.

Du Sautoy has been named by the Independent on Sunday as one of the UK’s leading scientists. In 2008 he was appointed to Oxford University’s Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science, a post previously held by Richard Dawkins.

Waterstones Children’s Laureate Frank Cottrell-Boyce and child psychologist and neuroscientist Professor Sam Wass discuss the importance to childhood development of reading and access to stories. They consider the urgent need to get reading as a right for all, not just the few.

When he was crowned Laureate in 2024, Cottrell-Boyce pledged to use his role to advocate for national provision so that every child – from their earliest years – has access to books, reading and the transformative ways in which they improve long-term life chances.

Professor Wass runs the Institute for the Science of Early Years (ISEY) at the University of East London. A major focus of research at the Institute is exploring how diverse early living environments influence early attention, learning and stress.

Céline Sciamma (Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Girlhood)’s film is a sublime modern fairytale about the quiet wonder of mother-daughter relationships. A favourite of the 2021 Berlin Film Festival, this beautifully understated drama returns the director to her preoccupation with coming-of-age stories to masterful effect.

The film tells the story of eight-year-old Nelly’s fantastical journey after the death of her beloved grandmother. While helping her mother clear out her childhood home, Nelly begins to explore the surrounding woodland and encounters a strangely familiar girl her own age. Instantly forming a connection with this mysterious new friend, Nelly embarks on a formative flight of fancy that encourages her to come to terms with this newfound loss.

Featuring exceptional central performances from real-life twins Joséphine and Gabrielle Sanz, Sciamma’s warm and gently profound film mixes the intimate with the fantastical with her characteristically delicate touch, weaved together into a tale of childhood, memory and loss that will resonate with audiences young and old.

“Enchanting… A gentle drama about daughterhood” – Little White Lies

Award-winning historian and broadcaster Professor David Olusoga and Lecturer in Education Dr Yinka Olusoga introduce their book Black History for Every Day of the Year. This unique and vital celebration of Black history travels across the world from ancient times to the modern day.

Meet well-known figures and unsung heroes, learn about famous and lesser-known key cultural moments in history, sport, science, activism, music and more. Hear stories of hope, connection and creativity, alongside tales of racism, resistance and celebration – from the nineteenth century anti-slavery movement to World Wars I and II, to the Harlem Renaissance, Stormzy, Simone Biles and beyond. With an accessible story for every day of the year, here is a rich history that is relevant to us all.

Come to the Family Garden for a pizza masterclass with Kitchen Garden Pizza. In this one-hour session your imagination and creativity will be fed along with your belly! You’ll get your hands messy with freshly grown and foraged ingredients, make and top your own dough and observe the pizzaioli at work at the wood-fired oven.

Dairy-free and gluten-free options available.

Come to the Family Garden for a pizza masterclass with Kitchen Garden Pizza. In this one-hour session your imagination and creativity will be fed along with your belly! You’ll get your hands messy with freshly grown and foraged ingredients, make and top your own dough and observe the pizzaioli at work at the wood-fired oven.

Dairy-free and gluten-free options available.

What are words? They’re the beginning of our stories: portals to treasured memories, to the strange sayings that seem to be unique to our own families and the beloved people that say them to us. So, what was your gran’s favourite word for a time-waster? How did your dad answer the question ‘What’s the time?’ And just how many responses are there to the daily query ‘What’s for dinner?’

Even better, how do these words change as they travel across our regions? Join Rosen for a tour of the British Isles and all its vernacular idiosyncrasies, through his ‘Almanac’ of the weird and wonderful words we use. He reflects on the joys of English, for anyone who loves language – whether following its rules or breaking them.

When was the last time you really stayed away from your phone? Or picked it up just to do the one task you intended, and didn’t fall into scrolling through your apps for hours? There is little doubt that we’re addicted to our smartphones, but interacting with the online world is an essential component of modern life, so it’s difficult to work out how to step away and find a balance.

In this offline session Dr Kaitlyn Regehr discusses her book Smartphone Nation: Why We’re All Addicted to Screens and What We Can Do About It, and shows how to keep the advantages and joy of the internet while also identifying the dangers. Look out for tips on how to withdraw when we’re being over-reliant on our devices! Regehr is an associate professor at University College London. She talks to presenter, writer, DJ, social activist and founder of Showerbox, which brings free showers to enhance the lives of those facing homelessness in London, Sarah Lamptey.