‘His Dark Materials’ cast to appear at Hay Festival

ALETHIOMETERS AT THE READY…

HIS DARK MATERIALS ACTORS DAFNE KEEN AND AMIR WILSON JOIN SERIES CREATORS AT HAY FESTIVAL 2021

Actors Dafne Keen and Amir Wilson will join producer Jane Tranter and screenwriter Jack Thorne to discuss the blockbuster series His Dark Materials at Hay Festival 2021 on Sunday 30 May at 11am

Based on the bestselling books by Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials takes place in a parallel world ruled by the sinister Magisterium, where a battle rages over a mysterious particle called Dust. Orphan Lyra must stop the fight from spilling over into our time with the help of Will.

When it was adapted by Cardiff-based production company Bad Wolf for HBO/BBC One, it was the highest rated drama launch on British TV in more than five years with over 9 million viewers. Keen and Wilson, who play the series leads Lyra and Will, join Tranter and Thorne to look at the joys and challenges of bringing the series to life, translating a world from page to screen.

Aine Venables, Hay Festival education manager, said: “From bestselling books to award-winning TV series, His Dark Materials has been a huge success story for Wales’ creative industries. We’re excited to share the story behind its success at Hay Festival 2021 with some of the most exciting stars of British drama. Join us.”

Taking place 26 May-6 June 2021, Hay Festival brings writers and readers together with a free digital programme for its 34th spring edition, offering an inspiring array of conversations, debates, workshops and performances. More than 300 acclaimed writers, global policy makers, historians, poets, pioneers and innovators take part, launching the best new fiction and non-fiction and interrogating some of the biggest issues of our time.

Festivalgoers can explore the programme and register free now at hayfestival.org/wales.

Hay Festival 2021 is supported by lead sponsors Visit Wales and Baillie Gifford, and by grant funding from Arts Council England’s Cultural Recovery Fund. While events are free to attend, donations to Hay Festival Foundation will be welcomed throughout at hayfestival.org/donate to support upcoming projects and secure the Festival for generations to come.

Signed books from Festival speakers are available to order now from the Festival bookshop at hayfestival.org/shop along with new lines of merchandise, with proceeds supporting Hay Festival here and around the world.

Events will be broadcast live from temporary studios in Richard Booth’s Bookshop, Hay-on-Wye, to hayfestival.org/wales. All events will be closed captioned and available to watch free for 24 hours after the live broadcast.

PROGRAMME IN DEPTH

HEADLINE GALAS

Hay Festival 2021 kicks off at 8pm on Wednesday 26 May with the Hay Festival Opening Gala – A Night of Hope, hosted by classicist Natalie Haynes and set to feature readings of inspiring works of literature, theatre and poetry from HRH The Duchess of Cornwall; actors Richard Eyre, Theresa Lola, Romola Garai, Jessica Raine, Stephen Fry, Charly Arrowsmith and Louise Brearley; comedians Sindhu Vee and Rob Brydon; writers Elif Shafak, Juno Dawson, Clemency Burton-Hill, Simon Schama, Rufus Mufasa, Hafsa Zayyan and Margaret Busby; poets Hollie McNish and Karl Nova; rapper Guvna B; scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock and more.

Then on Saturday 5 June at 9pm, the From Women to the World Gala sees another stellar cast share writing by influential women, drawing on work from two important new books, The Penguin Book of Feminist Writing edited by Hannah Dawson, and Elizabeth Filippouli’s From Women to the World: Letters for a new Century. Performers confirmed include actors Kate Winslet, Vanessa Redgrave, Juliet Stephenson, Suzette Llewellyn, Bishop Rose and Suzanne Packer, music star Skin, campaigner Hellen Lunkuse, and novelist Elif Shafak.

LITERARY GEMS

The Festival launches some of the best new fiction with an exclusive film screening by Ali Smith (Summer) and conversations with Lisa McInerney (The Rules of Revelation), Lionel Shriver (Should We Stay or Should We Go), Rachel Cusk (Second Place), Ethan Hawke (A Bright Ray of Darkness), Jo Lloyd (The Earth, Thy Great Exchequer, Ready Lies), Val McDermid and Kathryn Briggs (Resistance), Robert Jones Jnr (The Prophets), Brit Bennett (The Vanishing Half), Tahmima Anam (The Startup Wife), Sjón (Red Milk), Mel Giedroyc (The Best Things), Annie Macmanus (Mother Mother), Jon McGregor (Lean, Fall Stand), Monique Roffey (The Mermaid of Black Conch), Sarah Winman (Still Life), Rivers Solomon (Sorrowland), Hafsa Zayyan (We Are all Birds of Uganda), Jessie Greengrass (The High House), Dylan Moore (Many Rivers to Cross), Maggie Shipstead (Great Circle), Alice Albinia (Cwen) in conversation with Lily Cole, and Graham Norton launches his new book club with Marian Keyes (Grown Ups) and Richard Osman (The Thursday Murder Club). There’s standout poetry with Simon Armitage (A Vertical Art), Hollie McNish (Slug) and Creative Wales Hay Festival International Fellow Mererid Hopwood. Plus, critically acclaimed writers share their memoirs including Horatio Clare (Heavy Light) and Deborah Levy (Real Estate).

10@10 DEBUT NOVELISTS

Each night of the Festival is dedicated to the best debut fiction, showcasing the Festival’s selection of future award winners alongside some established interviewers at 10pm:

·       Catherine Menon (Fragile Monsters) in conversation with Colm Toíbín

·       Raven Leilani (Luster) in conversation with Pandora Sykes

·       Ailsa McFarlane (Highway Blue) in conversation with Thea Lenarduzzi

·       Natasha Brown (Assembly) in conversation with Meena Kandasamy

·       Sam Riviere (Dead Souls) in conversation with Megan Nolan (Acts of Desperation)

·       Rebecca Watson (little scratch) in conversation with Thea Lenarduzzi

·       Robert Webb (Come Again) in conversation with Georgina Godwin

·       Julianne Pachico (The Anthill) in conversation with Rosie Goldsmith

·       Caleb Azumah Nelson (Open Water) in conversation with Candice Brathwaite

·       Patricia Lockwood (no one is talking about this) in conversation with Nina Stibbe.

HAYDAYS AND YA WONDERS

Morning sessions for children and young adults feature Baroness Floella Benjamin, David Walliams, Radzi Chinyanganya (Move Like a Lion), Pamela Butchart (The Broken Leg of Doom), Michael Morpurgo (The Puffin Keeper), Chris Riddell, Dapo Adeola, Cressida Cowell (The Wizards of Once), Benjamin Zephaniah (Windrush Child), Nadia Shireen (The Slug in Love), Angie Thomas (Concrete Rose), Julian Clary and David Roberts, Michelle Paver (Skin Taker), Isabella Tree (When We Went Wild), and Laura Dockrill, while Joe Wicks presents Joe’s Family Foods in conversation with The Happy Pear twins David and Stephen Flynn and the winner of The Bookseller YA Book Prize 2021 Alice Oseman (Loveless) talks to Sarah Crossan. His Dark Materials stars Dafne Keen (Lyra) and Amir Wilson (Will) join producer Jane Tranter and screenwriter Jack Thorne to discuss the blockbuster series. Digital workshops run throughout the Festival at hayfestival.org/education where audiences can get creative at any time. Meanwhile, the digital Programme for Schools runs 24-28 May (see below).

CROSSING BORDERS

Collaborations with Hay Festival events around the world include conversations with Chilean writer Isabel Allende; Canadian anthropologist Wade Davis; Peruvian Nobel Prizewinner Mario Vargas Llosa and Canadian politician Michael Ignatieff; Granta Magazine presents a special showcase of Spanish writers and the winner of the International Man Booker Prize 2021 discuss their work; Book Aid International hosts a conversation between Lord Paul Boateng, pioneering library founder Ahmed Dahir Elmi and Somali-born British journalist and writer Rageh Omaar; and we mark 100 years of English PEN in a discussion around free speech with writers Lydia Cacho and Philippe Sands.

GEORGE FLOYD: ONE YEAR ON

Author and poet Lemn Sissay curates a special three-part Festival series to mark the one-year anniversary of George Floyd’s killing: diaspora writers Maaza Mengiste and Aida Edemariam discuss the ways fiction can change the non-fictional world; acclaimed memoirists Nadia Owusu (Aftershocks) and Hannah Pool (My Fathers’ Daughter) discuss the power of writing one’s own story; and American-British playwright, novelist, critic and broadcaster Bonnie Greer OBE, talks to Ash Sarkar about her life in writing and activism. Meanwhile, a Still Breathing event features actresses Suzette Llewellyn and Suzanne Packer and athlete Colin Jackson.

HAY-ON-EARTH: COUNTDOWN TO COP26

The latest environmental science, sustainable policies and creative responses to the climate crisis are brought into focus in a 22-part Hay-on-Earth series with COP-26 president Alok Sharma along with researchers, writers and campaigners Suzanne Simard (Finding the Mother Tree), Owen Hewlett and Emily Shuckburgh, Jemma Wadham (Ice Rivers), Helen Scales (The Brilliant Abyss), Ray Mears (We Are Nature), Jojo Mehta, Chris Packham & Megan McCubbin (Back to Nature), Danny Dorling (Slowdown), Dieter Helm (Net Zero), George Monbiot, Jay Griffiths (Why Rebel?), Elizabeth Kolbert (Under a White Sky), Patrick Barkham (Wild Child), Anna Jones (One: Pot, Pan, Planet), Diane Cook (The New Wilderness), Imbolo Mbue (How Beautiful We Were), Rob Penn (Slow Rise), Lucy Jones (Losing Eden), Jonathan Drori (Around the World in 80 Plants), Colin Tudge (The Great Re-Think), Richard Walker (The Green Grocer), J. B. MacKinnon (The Day the World Stops Shopping) Tim Jackson (Post Growth), Martin Shaw (Smoke Hole), Anne Karpf (How Women Can Save the Planet), Cassandra Coburn (Enough) Sarah Bridle (Food and Climate Change without the Hot Air), Derek Gow (Bringing Back the Beaver) and Sam Lee (The Nightingale). Festivalgoers are also encouraged to share their own creative responses to the climate crisis via the new Write for Change project at hayfestival.org/wales/hay-on-earth/countdown-to-cop26.aspx.

RESET: OUR POST-COVID FUTURE

Festival speakers discuss the impacts of the pandemic and share their thoughts on our post-Covid future as Reverend Richard Coles (The Madness of Grief) leads an event on grief in the time of Covid-19; Peter Ricketts (Hard Choices) and Matthew D’Ancona (Identity, Ignorance and Innovation) talk the future of politics; Noam Chomsky presents Consequences of Capitalism, Rachel Clarke presents Breathtaking: Inside the NHS in a Time of Pandemic alongside Michael Rosen (Many Different Kinds of Love) and Jim Down (Life Support); Andria Zafirakou (Those Who Can, Teach) discusses the future of education; Ed Miliband presents Go Big: How to Fix Our World; Jess Philips joins Gina Miller and Francesca Martinez for a discussion on This is how we Come Back Stronger with James Plunkett; Pandora Sykes talks How Do we Know We’re Doing it Right?; Martin Robinson (You’re Not the Man You’re Supposed to Be) and Guvna B (Unspoken) discuss toxic masculinity with poet Owen Sheers; former Culture Minister Ed Vaizey chairs a Country & Town House discussion on the future of arts funding with The Whitechapel Gallery’s Iwona Blazwick, the government’s Commissioner for Cultural Recovery and Renewal, Lord Neil Mendoza and Nina Plowman of CulturalComms; and Alastair Campbell (Living Better) and Ruby Wax discuss mental health.

GENDER EQUALITY IN THE TIME OF COVID-19

Everyday Sexism founder Laura Bates leads a series of discussions around motherhood and the ways Covid-19 has impacted it: data scientist Pragya Agarwal, journalist Caitlin Moran and activist Joeli Brearley join Bates to look at the growing gender divide; and writers Margaret Reynolds, Nell Frizzell and Donna Freitas talk to Emma Gannon about how our ideas of motherhood are changing. Meanwhile, author Becky Cooper shares her account of a long-unsolved murder of a Harvard graduate student in 1969, We Keep the Dead Close: A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence.

PM300: DEMOCRACY IN CRISIS

It’s 300 years since the UK first appointed a prime minister. A Festival series draws on lessons from the past to inform solutions to the global crisis in democracy in conversations with former Australian PM Julia Gillard (Women in Leadership), Mary Ann Sieghart (The Authority Gap), Sir Anthony Seldon (The Impossible Office) and Jim Naughtie, Steve Richards (The Prime Ministers), Vince Cable (Money and Power) and Grace Blakeley, Carole Walker (The Lobby Life) and more.

THE PAST REIMAGINED

Historians share their fresh takes on past events: Alice Roberts talks Ancestors; Malcom Gladwell talks The Bomber Mafia: A Story Set in War; Sathnam Sanghera (Empireland) and Kehinde Andrews (The New Age of Empire) discuss Britain’s hidden history; Simon Schama previews his new book, Grounded; Lucasta Miller (Keats) and Jonathan Bate (Bright Star, Green Light) mark 200 years of Keats with Miranda Seymour; Nick Crane talks Latitude; Helena Attlee talks Lev’s Violin; and the Wolfson History Prize presents this year’s shortlisted writers.

SCIENCE AND WONDER

The world’s first human cyborg Peter Scott-Morgan talks to Stephen Fry; a special event with The Royal Society showcases the best new science writing with Gaia Vince, Jim Al-Khalili, Camilla Pang and more; Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass R. Sunstein talk to Angela Duckworth for the British Academy Platform; Jennifer Lucy Allan talks The Foghorn’s Lament; and Nick Hunt (Outlandish) and Emma Gregg (The Flightless Traveller) discuss the future of travel.

DAILY FESTIVAL LECTURES

Thought leaders deliver headline think pieces throughout the Festival, tackling some of the biggest questions of our times, including the Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist Anne Applebaum (Christopher Hitchens Lecture); Gary Younge (Aneurin Bevan Lecture), Gordon Brown (Raymond Williams Lecture) with Seven Ways to Change the World, former Bank of England governor Mark Carney (The Friends Lecture) with Values, Welsh poet Gillian Clarke (Anthea Bell Lecture) with The Gododdin, Jojo Moyes (The Reading Agency Lecture), Heidi Larson (John Maddox Lecture), Jini Reddy (the inaugural Jan Morris Lecture) with Wanderland, and Margaret McMillan (British Pugwash Lecture).

Leading universities share their latest research in the Festival’s new Lunchtime Lectures series: actor Michael Sheen joins Daniel G. Williams and Leanne Wood to discuss Raymond Williams at 100; Nobel laureate Didier Queloz talks exoplanets; Michael Bresalier, lecturer in the history of medicine talks living with Covid-19; geography and earth sciences expert Siobhan Maderson talks about designing a post-pandemic future; professor of history Suzanne Schwarz talks histories of enslaved Africans; politics lecturer Jennifer Mathers talks women in leadership; neuroscientist Becky Inkster looks at the mental health of young people; Duncan Westbury talks sustainable food production; Abigail Rokison-Woodall, Tracy Irish, Angie Wootten and Charlotte Arrowsmith present Signing Shakespeare; Rebecca Ruth Gould and Kayvan Tahmasebian discuss translation as a form of activism; and cultural historian Karen Harvey explores an early example of #FakeNews with The Imposteress Rabbit Breeder.

GET CREATIVE

A series of Festival sessions encourage audiences to get creative with Sarah Raven (A Year Full of Flowers) and Carolyn Dunster (Cut & Dry); Robert Diament and Russell Tovey present Talk Art in conversation with Olivia Laing; David Hockney and Martin Gayford talk Spring Cannot Be Cancelled; Charles Saumarez Smith (The Art Museum in Modern Times) talks to Erica Wagner about the art of curation in our Eccles Centre Platform; and Meadow Arts presents a discussion between artists Tom Jeffreys, Alex Hartley and Anne de Charmant.

COMEDY, MUSIC AND ENTERTAINMENT

Leading comics present their latest work in evening events with Pippa Evans (Improv YourLife), Tom Allen (No Shame), Frank Skinner (A Comedian’s Prayer Book) and Marcus Brigstocke, while musician Pete Paphides talks Broken Greek, Sam Lee presents The Nightingale: Notes on a Songbird and the QI Elves close the Festival with an evening of trivia.

PROGRAMME FOR SCHOOLS

KS1 pupils can enjoy performance poetry from Joseph Coelho, outdoor adventures with Michael Holland (I Ate Sunshine for Breakfast), timely tips on How to Change the World with Rashmi Sirdeshpande, Simon Mole (I Love My Bike) and Maria Vegara (Little People, BIG DREAMS).

KS2 pupils will be invited to get creative in events with Matt Lucas and his Very Very Very Very Very Very Very Silly Book of Pranks, to go on location with Frank Cottrell-Boyce (Noah’s Gold) and Abi Elphinstone (The Crackledawn Dragon), to join Robert Winston as he explores the world of science, to discover the Earth’s Incredible Oceans with Jess French, and to take part in conversations with Patience Agbabi (The Time Thief), Zanib Mian (Planet Omar), Alex Wharton (Daydreams and Jellybeans), Adam Kay (Kay’s Anatomy), David Baddiel (Future Friend) and Konnie Huq.

And KS3 and 4 pupils will find inspiration in dynamic events led by authors, poets, illustrators and performers exploring important issues for young people to consider today, from the environment and sustainability to inclusivity, wellbeing and the importance of reading for pleasure. Guests include Benjamin Dean (Me my dad and the end of the Rainbow), Robert Muchamore (The Cherub Series), Liz Kessler (When the World Was Ours), Kiran Millwood Hargrave (A Secret of Birds & Bone), Phil Earle (Surrounded by Stories), Liz Hyder (Bearmouth), Manjeet Maan (The Crossing), Jeffrey Boakye (Musical Truth), Lisa Williamson (First Day of My Life), and Patrick Ness on adaptation and screenwriting.

The Festival is part of a global series of digital initiatives to connect, inspire and entertain book lovers and home educators throughout the year. These include the Hay Festival Podcast, a monthly book club, and release of the free Programme for Schools archive and Beacons Project workshops, while Hay Player continues to offer access to the full Hay Festival audio-video archive.

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