The Platform

The Platform is a space for young, emerging artists to share their work with Hay Festival audiences. Spanning a diverse range of art forms it aims to help promote and develop outstanding young creative artists aged between 21 and 28 who are at the start of their careers. Artists will be sharing their work with audiences across the Festival site (Beth Lewis, Hannah Hoebeke and Scott Wearing) on 29 May and there will be three artists performing in the Creative Hub at 7pm, they are:

Emma-Louise Howell - You Told Us To Talk About the Weather

In the past 6 hours, 90% of Brits have spoken about the weather. 



In the past 5 years, 7000 Brits have been arrested for speaking out about the climate crisis. Emma is here to explore this paradox. Through poems, satire and interviews with climate activists across the UK, You Told Us To Talk About the Weather unpacks our national obsession with small talk and asks how we can transform these conversations into a tool for meaningful change.

Emma is an award-winning writer from East Anglia. Spanning Theatre, Screen and Poetry, she won the Michael Ross Award from RADA for the academy’s Best New Writer and has since been shortlisted for The Stage Innovation Award, Off-West End Playwrights Award, Women in Theatre Lab and International Playwriting Prize. Described as a ‘rattling, rollicking writer’ (The Scotsman) and ‘one of our undoubted stars of the future’ (Broadway Baby), her work has been performed internationally on platforms such as BBC Introducing, Soho Theatre, Pleasance Atmos Magazine and Zebra Festival and is currently in development for screen and stage.

Flo Cornall - Mabuhay Means Welcome

“Flooding each other’s stomachs, to eat before a spoonful of speech / that is how we speak across the dining room table. / Try to savour that taste / what a filling conversation it is.”

Mabuhay Means Welcome is a live poetry performance that attempts to untangle the knotty reality of hyphenated identity. It’s a love letter to the Philippines from a formerly culturally disconnected member of the diaspora. Blending nostalgic photography and storytelling, Flo Cornall guides audiences into the vibrant bustling streets of the Philippines to explore the ripples of colonialism, good food and family.

Flo Cornall is a writer, journalist and poet from Derbyshire. Her British Filipino background has nurtured her interest in writing about diaspora and identity; her work often explores the idea of home, and what that can look or feel like. She was a Roundhouse Poetry Slam Finalist in 2025, an Associate Poet at Derby Poetry Festival 2024, and has performed across the UK. Her work as a BBC New Creative saw the release of ‘CAKE’ a short film based on a poem she wrote at 18. She’s currently writing her first novel, a satire on tabloid culture.

Vignesh Venkataramaiah - In Between Tongues

In Between Tongues is a solo spoken word performance exploring belonging, identity, and the search for home through a neurodivergent, multicultural British lens. Blending personal storytelling with rhythmic wordplay, the set moves between heritage and environment, frankness and vulnerability, capturing the complexity of living between cultures.

Drawing on past work including Bangalore to Britain, It’s Just A Flag and Recipe for a Perfect Dad - it weaves chant, fragmentation, and performance into an immersive experience. Honest and emotionally resonant, In Between Tongues invites audiences to reflect on identity, challenge assumptions, and reconsider what it truly means to feel at home

Vig aka Vig’s Poetry a Birmingham-based multidisciplinary freelancer, slam-winning spoken word poet, script/screenwriter, host, facilitator and producer. He has featured at major festivals, art exhibitions and on the BBC. He is regional Producer of Poets Palace Brum, part of the Birmingham Poetry Network, Good Company Brum and BBC Asian Network Represents. He’s on Punch Records’ and Young Minds Youth Advisory Boards, and a finalist for the IYA Arts and Culture Award and a supporting act for Solfull Poetry in New York.