Hay Festival 2010

An opportunity to get crafting! Activities differ every day, including everything from print-making to junk modelling with recycled materials. Get messy and creative: your imagination is the 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.

One of football’s most successful players ever, Gary Lineker’s latest act has seen him launch a podcasting empire. As founder of Goalhanger Productions, Lineker produces hit shows The Rest is History, The Rest is Entertainment, The Rest is Football and The Rest is Politics, adding much-needed nuance and insight into our national discourse. Join the England legend and Match of the Day presenter for a wide-ranging discussion of his career in sport, media and storytelling. He talks to historian and broadcaster David Olusoga.

The acclaimed author of The Road Home (winner of the Orange Prize), Music & Silence (winner of Whitbread Novel of the Year), and Lily (a Richard & Judy Book Club selection), Dame Rose Tremain talks to the Monocle 24 Books Editor about her piercing story of thwarted love and true friendship in 1960s London.

Marianne falls absolutely for Simon, whose cleverness and physical beauty hold the promise of a successful and monied future. But fate intervenes, Simon’s plans are blown off course, and Marianne is forced to bury her dreams of a future together. Seeming to underestimate her own worth, she nonetheless continues to seek the life she craves. But beneath his blithe exterior, Simon has been nursing a secret that will alter everything.

What should a future government’s manifesto and action for education include? Join the conversation with two former Secretaries of State for Education and the Times political columnist, Chair of the highly influential Times Education Commission, together with the Vice Chancellor of the University whose most recent independent, official inspection report of its teacher training provision begins: “Trainees benefit from an exceptional learning experience at the University of Worcester. This experience instils in them a deep-rooted commitment to making a difference to the lives of the children and young adults in the communities they serve.”

The Platform is a new space for young, emerging artists to share their work with Hay Festival audiences. Spanning a diverse range of art forms, The Platform aims to elevate and develop outstanding creative artists at the start of their careers. Join us to discover and support some of the best young talent working in the UK today.

Hay Festival’s 2024 Writers at Work/Awduron wrth eu Gwaith give a public reading of their current work. An opportunity to experience the best Wales has to offer in fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Writers at Work is a creative development programme for emerging Welsh talent at Hay Festival.

A BBC Radio 3 lunchtime concert series marking the centenary of Gabriel Fauré’s death. In this third, and slightly longer, of four recitals recorded for broadcast, the Leonore Piano Trio and Lawrence Power (viola) perform Le Beau’s Piano Quartet in F minor, Op 28 and Fauré’s Piano Quartet No 2 in G minor, Op 45.

Create fantasy worlds with Cressida Cowell! Plunge into the imagination of the multi-million-selling author and illustrator of How to Train Your Dragon as she introduces her latest fantasy adventure Which Way Round the Galaxy. She’ll help you create your own magical world and characters, all while illustrating live on stage. Bring along your ideas books to show Cressida at the signing.

Whether you’re in the forest, your own backyard or the city, there are so many exciting ways to engage with nature – and forester Peter Wohlleben has the best ideas for doing it. He has the knowledge, from pressing flowers, harvesting algae and skipping stones to observing spiders and even building your own mini sailboat. Learn how to decode nature’s messages, identify plants and animal tracks, record and preserve your finds and more, with Peter’s activities to help you explore the outdoors.

In this workshop with expert tutors from Citrus Arts, you’ll learn the basics of juggling and object manipulation, skills that you can continue to practise and improve on your own at home. Try out hula hooping, diablo and more, in true Big Top style.

Join Polly Clark of Mountain Yoga Breaks and Lee Craigie of The Adventure Syndicate for a two-hour off-road bike ride in the beautiful Wye Valley. Clark and Craigie have enormous amounts of guiding and coaching experience, and they’re passionate about encouraging more people, especially women, to realise that mountain biking is for them.

To take part in this session you need to be able to ride a bike, but no off-road riding experience is necessary. The event will start and finish at Drover Cycles, Forest Road, Hay-on-Wye HR3 5EH.

Draw your sabre and take on friends and family for the Hay Festival fencing crown in this have-a-go session with Fencing Cymru/Welsh Fencing. Learn the skills of this fast-paced Olympic sport in a safe and friendly environment before stepping onto the piste – en garde!

Gain a rare insight into our greatest playwright by one of our greatest actors. Dame Judi Dench describes every Shakespearean role she has played throughout her seven-decade career in a series of intimate conversations with actor and director Brendan O’Hea (associate artist at Shakespeare’s Globe), inviting us to share in her triumphs, disasters and backstage shenanigans. Drawing on her memoir Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent, interspersed with vignettes on mentors, critics, company spirit and rehearsal room etiquette, she discusses everything from the craft of speaking in verse to her personal interpretations of some of Shakespeare’s most famous scenes, all peppered with her mischievous sense of humour.

The Women’s Prize for Fiction-winning author of The Power introduces her new novel, in which a group of misfits plan an audacious heist with the future of the world at stake. When Martha Einkorn fled her father’s isolated compound in Oregon, she never expected to be working for a powerful social media mogul hell-bent on controlling everything. She may have left the cult, but if her father's apocalyptic warnings are starting to come true, how much future is left? Meanwhile, in a mall in Singapore, survivalist Lai Zhen flees from an assassin. She’s cornered and desperate. Suddenly, a piece of software appears on her phone telling her how to escape. But if those behind it can save her from danger, what do they want from her? Martha and Zhen’s worlds collide and set in motion an explosive chain of events.

Aged 15, Rebecca Achieng Ajulu-Bushell was world number one in the 50m breaststroke. Over the next three years, she would become a double British champion, sports personality of the year in Kenya, and make the Great British Olympic team as the first Black woman to swim for Britain. She made history, but chose to walk away from it all. Ajulu-Bushell shares how she achieved victory and what it cost her to do so, physically and mentally. Laying bare the pressures of success and meditating on Blackness and identity, Ajulu-Bushell is honest and heartfelt. Lahiri talks to Creative Producer Heather Marks.

Geri Halliwell-Horner – author, singer, producer and musician – joins us at Hay Festival for a celebration of Girl Power. Geri has created Rosie Frost, a new kind of hero for today’s young readers. She talks about her creative career, writing for children and the inspiration behind her adventure novel. Bring your questions for the Q&A with Geri.

Bring your sketchbook and follow creator Laura Ellen Anderson into the magical world of Miniopolis, a fun-filled land of minibeasts and moon magic. ​Meet an extraordinary cast of new characters including Marnie Midnight and her minibeast friends Floyd Flombiddium and Star Vonstrosity. Discover how Laura takes inspiration from the real world around us, create your own weird and wonderful Minibeast character and learn how to draw one of Marnie’s adorable friends.

In this workshop with expert tutors from Citrus Arts, you’ll learn the basics of juggling and object manipulation, skills that you can continue to practise and improve on your own at home. Try out hula hooping, diablo and more, in true Big Top style.

An opportunity to get crafting! Activities differ every day, including everything from print-making to junk modelling with recycled materials. Get messy and creative: your imagination is the 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 and meet Muffin the Mule and his friends, and enter the enchanting world of puppets brought to you by Will McNally, grandson of Jan Bussell and Ann Hogarth. Muffin and other characters from the BBC television programme will be appearing to celebrate Muffin’s new book, Muffin and the Passage of Time, written by Benjamin James Huxley. During the show Will McNally will talk about how Muffin the Mule became famous, while entertaining the children and taking the parents and grandparents on a trip down memory lane.

Come for a wild swim in the Wye with adventure and wild swimming specialist Angela Jones. The author of Wild Swimming the River Wye is passionate about protecting and respecting the river, its environment and wildlife. She shows how to engage in wild swimming with love and respect, testing the water for cleanliness and observing when it’s safe, before leading a guided wild swim session. Beginners and seasoned swimmers alike will gain a wealth of knowledge, including tips on acclimation, water safety, equipment, technique, reading the river and undercurrents.

You will meet Angela on the banks of the river at By the Wye Glamping Site, HR3 5RS, located just past the main bridge into Hay on the B4351
(What3Words : lifestyle.waving.cavalier).

The session starts at 3pm and ends at 5pm at the river.

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. And while you wait for your pizza to cook, you can decorate your own pizza box!
Dairy-free and gluten-free options available.

To fix Britain’s inequality problem, the power needs to be moved out of Westminster, and taken North. That’s the assertion of Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester, and Steve Rotheram, mayor of the Liverpool City Region. In this timely conversation, the pair – who have together written the book Head North: A Rallying Cry for a More Equal Britain – look at Northern voices and culture, the people, politics and events that have shaped both them and the North, and how we can spread political and economic power throughout the UK. Courageous and thought-provoking, this discussion offers a new vision for a fairer future.

From manifesto to biography and from historical fiction to coming-of-age story, four authors of books centring on queer people discuss their work. Chris Bryant is MP for Rhondda and was the first gay MP to celebrate his civil partnership in the Palace of Westminster. His novel James and John tells the story of what it meant to be gay in early 19th-century Britain through the lens of a landmark trial. Kenny Ethan Jones’ book Dear Cis(Gender) People is a powerful call to arms empowering cisgender people to be better allies. Wendy Moore’s Jack and Eve tells the real story of a jobbing actress who became Emmeline Pankhurst’s chauffeur and mechanic, and the daughter of a Scottish baron, who became public faces of the suffragette movement. Alana S Portero is a Spanish writer, poet and transgender activist whose novel Bad Habit explores coming of age in 1980s Spain, a place of vast social inequality but also one where social change was possible.

The Scottish National Coach and mother of champions Jamie and Andy brings her debut thriller to Hay Festival. The former Scottish international tennis player is not new to publishing – her memoir Knowing the Score was a Sunday Times bestseller – but with The Wild Card she’s served up an ace in the world of fiction. Join her for a first-hand account of her story about an ambitious player who puts her promising tennis career on hold to have a baby. Years later, a surprise entry to Wimbledon sweeps her up in a world she thought she’d left behind. But could the greatest comeback of all time destroy everything she’s sacrificed to protect?

There is no one who has a bigger impact on the mood of a workplace than the boss. But how do you ensure you’re one of the good ones, and not a figure that everyone complains about? Starting with his own background, Henry Engelhardt shares his advice on how to be a better boss, in conversation with Antonia Garrett-Peel, Senior Writer at Management Today. With almost 50 years’ working experience, starting with Poochie’s Hot Dogs at age 13, Engelhardt is a founder and CEO emeritus of Admiral Group, based in Cardiff. It is the largest private car insurer in the UK and the only FTSE 100 company in Wales.

The Platform is a new space for young, emerging artists to share their work with Hay Festival audiences. Spanning a diverse range of art forms, The Platform aims to elevate and develop outstanding creative artists at the start of their careers. Join us to discover and support some of the best young talent working in the UK today.

Plunge into the science of rewilding with biologist and author Ben Martynoga. He celebrates nature and the incredible ways it keeps us alive, and explores how we can welcome the wild on a personal and epic scale. River-nurturing wolves, tree-toppling beavers, climate warrior whales and even genetically-engineered woolly mammoths could all help us protect, revive and restore our planet to its full glory. Come and take an inspiring look at how we can rewild life so that nature – and humankind – flourishes for a long time to come.

In this workshop with expert tutors from Citrus Arts, you’ll learn the basics of juggling and object manipulation, skills that you can continue to practise and improve on your own at home. Try out hula hooping, diablo and more, in true Big Top style.

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. And while you wait for your pizza to cook, you can decorate your own pizza box!
Dairy-free and gluten-free options available.

Come and meet Muffin the Mule and his friends, and enter the enchanting world of puppets brought to you by Will McNally, grandson of Jan Bussell and Ann Hogarth. Muffin and other characters from the BBC television programme will be appearing to celebrate Muffin’s new book, Muffin and the Passage of Time, written by Benjamin James Huxley. During the show Will McNally will talk about how Muffin the Mule became famous, while entertaining the children and taking the parents and grandparents on a trip down memory lane.

Green grass, blue skies, white flannels and the gentle thwack of leather on willow; the quintessential image of cricket. The so-called ‘gentleman's game’ developed with the principle of fair play at its heart. But something is rotten at the core. The Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket Report in 2023 found that cricket is riddled with structural and institutional racism, sexism, classism and elitism. Fry, Rafiq, Rutherford and Taylor discuss the big issues, examine the systemic biases and scrutinise the ongoing solutions to render the second most popular sport on Earth a game for everyone.

Stephen Fry is former President of the MCC and a lifelong cricket fan. Azeem Rafiq is a former Yorkshire County cricketer and England youth captain. Claire Taylor MBE is a World Cup-winning English cricketer. They talk to Adam Rutherford, scientist, author and player for The Authors XI cricket team.