Hay Festival 2025 Full Programme

Son of John le Carré and acclaimed novelist Nick Harkaway leads us into an extraordinary, thrilling return to the world of the spymaster. Karla’s Choice is set in the missing decade between two iconic George Smiley novels, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

It’s spring 1963 and George Smiley has left the Circus. Among the wreckage of the West’s spy war with the Soviets, he has eyes only on a more peaceful life. But Control has other plans. Smiley reluctantly agrees to one last task – but soon finds himself entangled in a perilous mystery…

Following last year’s sell-out scratch choir session, Juliet Russell returns to create a beautiful sound with 200 strangers. She has led choirs for Paloma Faith, Alt-J, Greenpeace, the Olympic Torch project, Channel 4 and Glastonbury. As a singer, music creative and vocal coach on The Voice and Netflix new flagship music show Building the Band, Juliet will guide you to use your voice in a whole new way.

No experience is needed. This session is for singers, secret singers and ‘I’ve never sung in my lifers’. Uplifting, engaging and a perfect way to start your day.

Step into the open air and let the rhythm of nature fuel your creativity in Rhythms of the Wild, an electrifying fusion of poetry, rap and the great outdoors. Led by Casey Bailey – acclaimed poet, spoken word artist, rapper and educator from Birmingham – this immersive experience invites you to explore the deep connection between rhythm, storytelling and the natural world.

Experiment with form, flow and feeling – as you move through scenic landscapes, you’ll engage in dynamic writing exercises that merge the energy of rap with the introspection of poetry. Let the wind set your tempo, the rustling leaves inspire your metaphors and the sounds of nature shape your verses.

Bailey will share insights on how environment influences rhythm and lyricism, demonstrating how poetry and rap can be powerful tools for self-expression. The experience culminates in a captivating live performance, where Bailey’s words will bring the natural world to life through rhyme and rhythm.

Join award-winning children’s novelist Kiran Millwood Hargrave (The Girl of Ink & Stars, Julia and the Shark) as she celebrates the next book in her unmissable Geomancer trilogy, which began with In the Shadow of the Wolf Queen.

Kiran takes us on a journey through her creativity, to discover the real woodlands and earth magic that lie at the heart of her stories. You’ll marvel at Celtic rainforests, talking root systems, ambitious arctic foxes and ancient Greenland sharks. And you’ll leave feeling inspired by the world around you and ready to create your own tales.

Please bring your own notebook and pen to this event.

Join international storyteller Jan Blake, djembe player Mohamed Gueye and musicians from the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra for an interactive performance of Ananse and the Monkeys.

Ananse needs some money to buy food, so makes some hats to sell, but on his way to the market some monkeys steal them! Can Ananse outwit the monkeys to get his precious hats back?

It is with great sadness that this event is cancelled due to the recent death of Alex Wheatle.

We hope you enjoy reading Alex's latest book The Girl with the Red Boots along with his prolific back list, including the Crongton series which is now adapted for screen on BBC.

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.

Come to a fun, story-generating workshop with Somerset children’s author Emma Bettridge (The Ranch at the End of the World, Goodbye Hobbs, Red is Home) and her dog Nell.

During the workshop, we’ll go for a little walk down to the River Wye and then gather to write, draw and use dictaphones to record our stories and ideas. This will be a relaxed, interesting and inspiring workshop.

Please note that the workshop involves Nell the dog – a very friendly and lovely Labrador x Golden Retriever. Please don’t bring any animals of your own with you.

Enjoy this twenty-minute open air performance between events. Got 2 Sing Choir perform uplifting songs from top of the charts to golden oldies, with plenty of fun and laughter.

Infamous Edwardian wife-murderer Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen was brought to justice by an unlikely group of people: music hall women. Historian Hallie Rubenhold gives voice to this group, who were never properly heard at the time.

On 1 February 1910, the vivacious music hall performer Belle Elmore suddenly vanished from her London home, causing alarm among her circle of female friends, the entertainers of the Music Hall Ladies’ Guild, who demanded an immediate investigation. What came to light was a gruesome secret, and the eventual conviction and hanging of Dr Crippen, a homoeopath and ear and eye specialist, for the murder.

The Poet Laureate makes a luminous tribute to the natural world, presenting his new collection inspired by the diversity of habitats found at Cornwall’s Lost Gardens of Heligan.

The Gardens are an ambitious restoration project where history and mystery combine. Armitage evokes the reawakened landscape with its woods, meadows and ‘jungle’, offering a bustling, fertile realm for all sorts of creatures to inhabit.

Using elements of riddle and folklore, he animates a series of dwellings: the ‘twig-and-leaf crow’s-nest squat’ of a squirrel’s drey, a beaver lodge’s ‘spillikin stave church’ and a hive’s ‘reactor core’. He blurs the distinctions between human and animal, natural and cultivated, emphasising commonality, while also warning of the fragility of these spaces and their dwellers.

The next ten years will see an unprecedented transfer in wealth from the so-called ‘baby boomer’ generation to the young. Never before will so much money be shifted so suddenly from one generation to the next, and never before has the next generation felt so differently about the future of the planet and of capitalism.

In this look at intergenerational attitudes to wealth, global investment banker, philanthropist and thought leader Ken Costa examines how Generation Z’s focus on ethics, climate change and purpose will change capitalism forever, and what that means for the future of the world.

Costa is a supporter of investment in the next generation, and chairs Glorify, a meditation app.

Our well-being as humans is directly connected to nature on our planet, and the Amazon Rainforest is of vital importance globally. Yet the dangers posed to it are myriad. Our panellists, all with an intimate connection to the rainforest, talk to investigative reporter Jon Lee Anderson about attempts to save the Amazon from illegal loggers and how indigenous knowledge is key to protecting the area.

They also look at the work of late journalist Dom Phillips, killed in 2022 alongside Brazilian Bruno Pereira, an expert on indigenous peoples of Brazil, while researching a book on the Amazon. Phillips’ wife Alessandra Sampaio launched the Dom Phillips Institute in his memory. The organisation aims to promote and share knowledge of the forest and its peoples.

Eliane Brum and Jonathan Watts live in Altamira in the Amazon Rainforest. Brum is a writer, journalist and documentary filmmaker, whose latest book Banzeiro Òkòtó investigates the destruction of the Amazon by the construction of one of the largest dams in the world. Watts is global environment editor for the Guardian and founder of the Rainforest Journalism Fund. He is leading a team of writers to finish the book Phillips was working on when he was murdered.

Beto Marubo is an indigenous leader of the Marubo ethnic group in the Javari Valley region of the Brazilian Amazon. He worked for 12 years alongside indigenous expert Bruno Pereira in the protection of 16 isolated peoples in that vast area, which sits close to the borders of Brazil, Peru and Colombia

Join Phoebe Smith, Welsh author and guide with Inntravel (specialists in self-guided walking, cycling and rail holidays) and the Welsh singer-songwriter, Cerys Matthews to walk parts of the ancient ways around Hay-on-Wye, from the well-known Offa’s Dyke to lesser known cart tracks and paths. Smith’s Wayfarer: Love, Loss and Life on Britain’s Pilgrim Paths has been shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Travel Book of the Year 2025. Explore with her and discuss how nature and place can be powerful forces for healing, understanding and discovering selfhood.

BAFTA award-winning actor, writer, producer and director Sharon Horgan discusses her outstanding creative work with TV executive and new Hay Festival Chair Jay Hunt.

A writer with a remarkable ability to craft complex, compelling and messy characters within worlds of hilarity and intrigue, Horgan is well known for her sitcom Catastrophe and BBC show Pulling, winner of two British Comedy Awards. Black comedy series Bad Sisters, which Horgan co-wrote, produced and starred in for Apple TV+, has received high critical acclaim, winning Best Drama at the 2023 Television BAFTAS.

Horgan shares a look at her source material, from the Belgian TV series Clan on which Bad Sisters was based, to the true crime literature she loves to read. Considering how story bends and changes in the transfer across different media, she describes what gives a book great potential for adaptation. Her production company is currently co-producing adaptations of two New York Times bestsellers, I’m Glad My Mom Died for Apple and Vladimir for Netflix.

Join international storyteller Jan Blake, djembe player Mohamed Gueye and musicians from the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra for an interactive performance of Ananse and the Monkeys.

Ananse needs some money to buy food, so makes some hats to sell, but on his way to the market some monkeys steal them! Can Ananse outwit the monkeys to get his precious hats back?

An unmissable, wild family game show with acclaimed French comedian Marcel Lucont, in which kids get to be pests, politicians and pétomanes (Google it) in order to be crowned the most awful child. See what happens when international insouciance meets infantile exuberance. A huge hit at Edinburgh Fringe and many other festivals, the award-winning comic channels his acerbic humour and quickfire wit into a series of tasks for the younger generation, which is every bit as entertaining for adults as it is for children. Très funny!

Join us for an exclusive guided tour led by one of our passionate volunteer guides during Hay Festival 2025. Our knowledgeable guides will take you on a captivating journey through the castle, revealing tales of medieval knights, royal intrigue and the castle’s remarkable restoration. As you explore the castle you’ll gain unique insights into the lives of those who once called this place home. The tour also offers breathtaking views of the surrounding countryside, providing the perfect backdrop for your visit.

Guided tours run daily at 11am and 2pm. Tour price includes entry into the Castle for a year including the current exhibition: 20th Century Welsh Artists.

The author of The Midnight Library and How to Stop Time introduces his new novel The Life Impossible, a story of wild adventure and deep transformation.

When retired maths teacher Grace is left a run-down house on a Mediterranean island by a long-lost friend, curiosity gets the better of her. She arrives in Ibiza with a one-way ticket, no guidebook and no plan.