Hay Festival 2025 Full Programme

Dav focuses on mastering arm balances in this class, diving deep into the fundamentals of arm balance postures, and breaking them down step-by-step to help you build strength, stability and confidence. Whether you’re a beginner or intermediate practitioner, he’ll guide you through key arm balances such as Crow, Bakasana and Side Plank, offering accessible variations and progressions for all levels. You’ll learn how to engage your core, activate the right muscle groups and improve your alignment for safe and effective practice. He’ll also focus on overcoming the mental barriers that often accompany arm balances, like fear of falling or self-doubt.

By the end of this class, you’ll not only feel stronger and more stable, you’ll also develop the confidence to approach arm balances with a sense of empowerment and clarity. Whether you’re looking to master your first crow pose or refine your technique, Dav will provide the guidance and support to help you move through fear and discover your potential on the mat.

Beginners and experienced students are most welcome. Yoga mats are provided.

Please contact Clare Fry at hello@larchwoodstudio.com with any questions relating to these classes. As capacity is limited, we recommend booking in advance to avoid disappointment.

Whether you’re new to sound baths or a seasoned wellness enthusiast, this transformative experience is perfect if you’re seeking to reduce stress, enhance focus and nurture well-being. Using high-quality crystal bowls, each tuned to vibrational frequencies that align with your Chakra energy centres, the sound bath promotes relaxation, improved intuition, creativity and rejuvenation. As you lie comfortably, you are guided into a Somatic meditation followed by the healing resonance of the crystal singing bowls, restoring balance, peace and harmony to your body, mind, spirit.

No prior experience is necessary. Bring a yoga mat and blanket, and get cosy. Not suitable for people with Sound Epilepsy, in the first trimester of pregnancy, with metal implants or severe mental illness.

Former Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt considers Britain’s role in the world in the century ahead. He tells stories from his time as Foreign Secretary, asking if Britain is a minor player, marginalised by our departure from the EU, or if there’s a bigger role for us to play in an international order that is rapidly changing.

The MP also looks at whether it’s time to focus on more narrow interests, or to defend the huge progress of freedom and democracy we have seen over the last century. Hunt was elected Conservative MP for South West Surrey in 2005. He served in a number of roles during the recent Conservative government, including Health Secretary and Chancellor.

Start the day at Hay Festival with headline guests chaired by editors from The Independent reviewing the news, discussing the headlines and issues of the day, and revealing what’s breaking and trending online. A fascinating look at what’s tickling the nation’s fancy – and driving it to splenetic fury. Bring your coffee!

Among today’s guests are ITV’s deputy political editor Anushka Asthana, author of Taken As Red: How Labour Won Big and the Tories Crashed the Party, BBC International Editor Jeremy Bowen, Fara Dabhoiwala, historian and author of What is Free Speech and Lyse Doucet, the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent and Senior Presenter.

What is a planet? And what makes Earth so special? Take a new look at the world around you with the space scientist and broadcaster. She explains that the story of Earth is best understood as part of its larger family, where each planet becomes a character with a story of its own to tell, from Jupiter, the King of the Solar System, to ice oddity Uranus and outlier planet-but-not-a-planet Pluto.

Dame Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock has worked in both industrial and academic environments. As a broadcaster and author she works to encourage underrepresented communities to enter STEM and to make science more accessible to young girls, literally encouraging them to ‘reach for the stars’. Her latest book The Story of the Solar System: A Visual Journey brings the space family to life.

A celebration of Gabriel García Márquez’s iconic novel One Hundred Years of Solitude. The Colombian novelist was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982.

Translator Daniel Hahn discusses the book, its recent screen adaptation and all things in between with New Yorker staff writer Jon Lee Anderson, who has reported extensively from Latin America and is a board member of the Gabriel García Márquez Foundation, and Colombian writer and journalist Silvana Paternostro, author of Solitude & Company, a book about Márquez as seen by the people who knew him best.

Come and listen to this year’s celebrated Hay Festival Writers at Work. This thrilling 2025 group of ten Welsh writers will share new fiction and poetry, in English and Cymraeg.

Guides from the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park lead a walk through the beautiful surrounds of Hay-on-Wye. Two of the Park’s ecologists introduce wayfarers to some of the captivating local flora and fauna.

Hay-on-Wye is located within 520 square miles of beautiful landscape that makes up the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park. The National Park is driving change to bring about a sustainable future, meeting our needs within planetary boundaries. Their Hay Festival series of walks take you into the town’s local environment while offering the opportunity to learn more about the Park’s work and its treasured landscape.

Children’s writer Onjali Q Raúf celebrates a hidden army of young carers in this event, as she shares her Wales-set novel The Letter with the Golden Stamp.

The book introduces Audrey, who lives in Swansea and is keeping a big secret: she’s the sole carer for her increasingly sick mother, as well as for her two younger siblings. Oh, and she’s also a seasoned thief…

When a new neighbour threatens Audrey’s world, she must go on an adventure to save her family.

The Letter with the Golden Stamp delves into the fears and hopes of young carers everywhere, and looks at the invisible sources of kindness knocking on all our doors.

Raúf gives young attendees to this event an insight into the challenges faced by carers, explains her storytelling process, and provides an uplifting look at how we can all be there for each other.

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.

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.

Battles, borders, books and breakfast! Come and explore Hay Castle with its director Tom True, who will introduce the history and invite you to get to know some of the characters from the castle’s past. He’ll also talk about running Hay Castle for the past three years.

Coffee and pastry included in the ticket price. Meet in the Great Hall.

Legend has it that Hay Castle was built in a day by a giantess called Matilda who hurled a stone across the Wye at the end of construction. Find out about this story and more with this entry ticket that also allows you to visit the castle as many times as you like for a year. Explore Matilda’s room, the castle’s costumes and cellars, and the Richard Booth Archive, and make your way right to the top for amazing views from the viewing platform.

This ticket allows you to visit the Castle at a time of your choice on the day selected, and also gives you entry into the 20th Century Welsh Artists exhibition on the second floor.

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.

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.

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. Got 2 Sing Choir perform uplifting songs from top of the charts to golden oldies, with plenty of fun and laughter.

On the last day of April 1980, six heavily armed gunmen burst into the Iranian embassy in London, taking 26 hostages. A tense six-day siege ensued, and millions gathered around screens to witness the longest news flash in British television history, in which police negotiators and psychiatrists sought a bloodless end to the standoff, while the SAS – previously an organisation shrouded in secrecy – laid plans for a daring rescue mission: Operation Nimrod.

Historian Ben Macintyre draws on unpublished source material, exclusive interviews with the SAS and testimony from witnesses including hostages to tell the drama-filled story of the Iranian embassy siege.

Macintyre’s books include Colditz and Agent Sonya. Several have been made into films and television series, including Operation Mincemeat, A Spy Among Friends and SAS: Rogue Heroes.

Travel writer Horatio Clare and investigative journalist Nicola Kelly speak about Britain’s intentionally hostile immigration system and the many people working to counteract it, with author and environmental campaigner Ben Rawlence. This event will leave you with new perspectives on one of the most urgent issues of our time.

In Clare’s We Came by Sea, he tells of the volunteers who help thousands of refugees in Calais, of the lifeboat crews rescuing those at sea and “an unrecognised, uncelebrated, all but unknown Britain” which is giving its all to help the vulnerable and desperate.

Kelly, formerly a Home Office insider, gives a nuanced insight into the small boats crisis in Anywhere But Here, from the under-resourced coastguards who have to oversee search and rescue operations to the decision-makers hired from McDonald’s and Aldi to conduct ‘life and death’ asylum interviews.