Hay Festival 2026

Come on a walk through the beautiful surrounds of Hay-on-Wye, led by guides from the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park. You’ll be joined by local experts who will give their insights into this treasured landscape.

Hay-on-Wye is located within 520 square miles of beautiful countryside 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.

Step inside Hay Castle – a border stronghold shaped by myth, power and reinvention. Visit the current BorderLands exhibition delivered in partnership with Meadow Arts, and enjoy full access to the castle, from cellar to rooftop. Explore rooms layered with stories, including Matilda’s room, the Richard Booth space, historic costumes and the castle cellar.

Experience the new, interactive exhibit on the second floor, then climb to the viewing platform for wide views across the Wye Valley. Your ticket also includes unlimited return visits for a full year, so you can come back as the seasons – and the castle – change.

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 Meadow Arts BorderLands exhibition.

Step inside Hay Castle during Hay Festival 2026 and explore a place shaped by power, survival and reinvention. Led by an expert volunteer guide, this tour traces 800 years of life inside the castle – from medieval plots and royal whispers to its rescue, restoration and reimagining as a place for ideas today. You’ll move through rooms, stairways and towers, hearing stories of the people who lived, schemed, dreamed and partied here. Along the way, take in sweeping views across the Wye Valley – a reminder that this is a border castle, built to watch and be watched.

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

Come on a walk through the beautiful surrounds of Hay-on-Wye, led by guides from the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park. You’ll be joined by local experts who will give their insights into this treasured landscape.

Hay-on-Wye is located within 520 square miles of beautiful countryside 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.

Step inside Hay Castle during Hay Festival 2026 and explore a place shaped by power, survival and reinvention. Led by an expert volunteer guide, this tour traces 800 years of life inside the castle – from medieval plots and royal whispers to its rescue, restoration and reimagining as a place for ideas today. You’ll move through rooms, stairways and towers, hearing stories of the people who lived, schemed, dreamed and partied here. Along the way, take in sweeping views across the Wye Valley – a reminder that this is a border castle, built to watch and be watched.

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

Malala Yousafzai became the most famous teenager in the world when she was shot by the Taliban, and as an adult she’s one of the most famous activists of our time. Join Malala as she reintroduces herself in this frank and forthcoming conversation with journalist and presenter Anna Foster. She discusses being thrust onto the public stage, the struggle to find her place and how she eventually came to understand that she could be unapologetically who she wants to be.

Malala is an education activist, the youngest-ever Nobel laureate, a best-selling author and award-winning film producer.

It is 35 years since the end of the Cold War – and the nuclear threat is once again reshaping global politics. But in the decades since the Berlin Wall fell, have we become complacent about the risks it poses? Acclaimed historian Serhii Plokhy discusses his timely new book, The Nuclear Age: An Epic Race for Arms, Power and Survival, tracing the history and geopolitics behind the nuclear arms race from the first atomic bomb to today.

The Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard talks to investigative journalist Oliver Bullough, author of Everybody Loves Our Dollars, asking what we can learn from the first nuclear arms race that can help us to stop the new one.

Comedy superstar Tom Allen is already a household name on TV, from Cooking With the Stars to Bake Off: An Extra Slice. Now he brings his acerbic wit and riotous storytelling to this discussion of his debut novel, in which all hell breaks loose in sleepy suburbia.

Common Decency chronicles the lives of one street’s residents as they band together to save a beloved oak tree from destruction at the hands of ruthless developers. As tensions rise and repressed neuroses and resentments seep out, the secrets of Oak Drive threaten to shatter the veneer of order, revealing some surprising truths. Allen talks to journalist and author Poorna Bell.

In these uncertain times, we might all sit there and want things to change, but how many of us get off the sofa and try to make that change happen? Rachel Burden is bringing Radio 4’s virtual Café Hope to Hay Festival welcoming guests who’ve made a difference to their community and changed it for the better in big or small ways. You’ll be inspired hearing the highs and lows of how it all happened. We’re celebrating amazing individual stories, a reminder that just one person can make a huge difference. Bring a brew and we’ll bring the hope.

Emerald Fennell is an Oscar-winning writer and a director known for work that sparks conversation and looks controversy straight in the face. Here she discusses her latest film, a big screen adaptation of Emily Brontë’s novel Wuthering Heights, starring Margot Robbie as Catherine Earnshaw and Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff.

Fennell first read the book at the age of 14, and says it quite simply “cracked me open”. As we’ve come to expect from the woman behind the controversial Saltburn, Fennell’s Wuthering Heights is provocative, sexy and primal. She's in conversation with the actor and writer, Vicki Pepperdine, who played Sister Mercy in Wuthering Heights.

Imagine a train that could take you back in time, so you can undo the mistakes you made. The best-selling author of The Midnight Library brings us another brilliant novel that asks us to consider what makes a life well-lived. The Midnight Train tells the story of Wilbur. On the brink of his death, a train arrives ready to take him back in time to relive his most important moments. If your life flashed before your eyes, where would you stop? Haig is in conversation with author and psychologist Claudia Hammond.

Join acclaimed author Katherine Rundell, the internet’s librarian and book advocate Jack Edwards, poet and author Joseph Coelho, and the Chief Executive of the National Literacy Trust Jonathan Douglas, for a vital conversation on the urgency of the National Year of Reading, chaired by children’s books commentator Julia Eccleshare.

Discover how we can ‘Go All In’ to play a role in creating change, showing the power of books to transform lives, and how we can all play a part in boosting literacy levels at home, in schools and in our own communities.

The Verb, BBC Radio 4’s poetry performance and discussion programme, comes to Hay Festival. In the company of the Barnsley Bard Ian McMillan and his guests there’ll be word wrangling, juxtaposition juggling, playful phrasing, and of course some poems. Meet us in the poetry tardis that is The Verb when it touches down at this year’s Hay Festival.

Hugh Bonneville reveals the books he reads when he’s not learning lines and the stories that have inspired him and his career. A wonderful chance to hear a different side to the actor, best known for his roles in Downton Abbey and Paddington. A warm and witty journey through Bonneville’s life-story, with plenty of his trademark charm and self-deprecating humour. He’s in conversation with journalist and broadcaster Martha Kearney.

Join trail-blazing publisher, writer and activist Margaret Busby in conversation with Booker Prize-winning author Bernardine Evaristo as they discuss Busby’s acclaimed memoir, Part of the Story. A true pioneer of British publishing, Busby reflects on a remarkable life devoted to championing diverse voices, shaping literary culture and breaking barriers. Together these two influential figures explore creativity, activism and the ongoing struggle for representation in literature. Expect an inspiring, candid and humorous exchange about friendship, resilience and the power of storytelling. A compelling conversation for anyone passionate about books, identity and the stories that shape who we are.

Comedian Cally Beaton champions her modern manifesto for keeping cool when you’re a hot mess. Challenging the age-old narrative that women become invisible when they cease to be fertile, defying the bullsh*t expectation that midlife women at best maintain (looks, career, relationships), and at worst decline.

Taking an irreverent look at her own story of radical midlife reinvention – from meetings in the boardroom to becoming a stand-up comedian – Beaton shares stories and experiences from her career. Talking to award-winning Welsh comedian Kiri Pritchard-McLean, she gives a fresh, funny and life-affirming look at what it means to be a middle-aged woman who is willing to take a chance, put herself out there, and who is also willing to fail.

YM Abdel-Magied brings real-life engineering experience to her first novel, a tale of ambition, greed and the deadly fury of Mother Nature in the face of Big Oil. Born in Sudan, her first job was in a coal mine in Australia, and she later trained and worked internationally as a drilling engineer.

Abdel-Magied speaks to literary influencer Jack Edwards about At Sea, in which a female driller takes charge of an isolated offshore oil rig with an entirely male crew. The rig is teetering on the edge of disaster – and when all her warnings are ignored, she realises that the real danger may lie in the cold calculations and base desires of the men determined to finish the operation as quickly and cheaply as possible. Can she prevent the looming catastrophe that threatens the rig, the crew and the sea before it’s too late?

Emily Brontë’s classic Wuthering Heights has inspired more than 30 film and TV adaptations, most recently Emerald Fennell’s film, which hit UK cinemas this year. Discover Andrea Arnold’s take on the story in this screening of her 2011 version, starring Kaya Scodelario and James Howson – the first Black actor to play Heathcliff.

The film tells the story of a homeless boy named Heathcliff, taken in by Earnshaw, a benevolent Yorkshire farmer. Heathcliff develops a passionate relationship with the farmer’s daughter, Catherine, inspiring the mistrust of his son. When Earnshaw passes away, the three must finally confront their intense feelings.

Directed by Andrea Arnold (2011). Film duration: 2 hours 9 minutes. Certificate 15.

BBC Radio 4's What’s Up Docs? returns to Hay Festival. Drs. Chris and Xand van Tulleken explore the secrets of healthy longevity with Dr Devi Sridhar, professor and Chair of Global Public Health at the University of Edinburgh.

Experience an absorbing evening of sophisticated modern jazz, elevated by the atmospheric acoustic and Georgian Gothic setting of St Mary’s Church in Hay-on-Wye.

Led by guitarist and composer Will Barnes, the quartet features pianist Jack Gonsalez, bassist Aidan Thorne and drummer James Batten – an ensemble recognised for its tight chemistry and compelling live performances. Their sound pays homage to jazz greats such as Wes Montgomery, Pat Metheny and Oscar Peterson, while forging a distinct voice of their own. Outside the Light is their second album.