Saturday 1st November, 10.30 am coffee, performance at 11.00 am
Monthly Organ Recital on the Bevington Organ with Barrie Magill
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Wednesday 5th November, 7 pm
Vintage Slide Show ‘Old Hay in Photographs’
by Tim Pugh
Admission £5 (in aid of S. Mary’s church). The S. Mary’s bar will be serving drinks.
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Saturday 8th November, 7 pm
William Howard piano recital with composer Howard Skempton
William Howard presents a programme of music by Janáček, Robert Schumann, Ravel and Chopin, along with a world premiere of ‘Chorales and Inventions’ by composer Howard Skempton.
William is one of Britain’s leading pianists, enjoying a career that has taken him to over 40 different countries. His passion is 19th century piano repertoire, especially Schubert, Chopin, Schumann and Fauré. He also has a strong interest in Czech piano music and has been particularly acclaimed for his performance of Janáček, for which he received a medal from the Czech Minister of Culture in 1986. Throughout his professional life William has been active in commissioning new works and has taken part in over 100 premieres.
For full details and tickets, see HAY MUSIC.
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Hay Festival Winter Weekend 2025 – Events at S. Mary’s Church, Hay
FOR FULL DETAILS AND TO BUY TICKETS PLEASE SEE HAY FESTIVAL WINTER WEEKEND.
Event 10 – Friday 28 November 2025, 7.30pm – 10pm
Father Richard: Silent Film with Live Organ Accompaniment
Faust
S. Mary’s Church provides the atmospheric setting for a unique and immersive screening of the classic 1926 silent film Faust. Organist and composer Father Richard Williams, formerly S. Mary’s parish priest, provides soaring live accompaniment on the church’s splendid Bevington Organ. There will be an interval mid-performance.
Event 15 – Saturday 29 November 2025, 10am
Jamie Tahsin talks to Ben Mercer
Clown World: Four Years Inside Andrew Tate’s Manosphere
How did little-known kickboxer and failed reality TV star Andrew Tate rapidly rise to become an icon for a generation of young men? And is there any stopping the dangerous ideology he has unleashed?
Award-winning documentary maker Jamie Tahsin, who has been investigating Tate since 2019, speaks to Ben Mercer, an expert on sport, social media and masculinity.
Event 17 – Saturday 29 November 2025, 11.30am
Susie Dent talks to Gary Raymond
Words for Life
There’s a word for just about everything, and Susie Dent is here to enlighten you on a host of new (and old) vocabulary. The lexicographer speaks to Gary Raymond about her new book Words for Life, in which she shares the definition and history of a word for each day of the year.
Dent is Queen of Dictionary Corner on Channel 4’s Countdown, and hosts TV and radio shows. Raymond is a novelist, critic, editor, broadcaster and presenter of The Arts Show for BBC Radio Wales.
Event 21 – Saturday 29 November 2025, 1pm
Teleri Glyn-Jones, Will Hayward and Ruth Mosalski talk to Rob Osborne
Could Reform Win in Wales?
As Wales prepares for next year’s Senedd elections, Reform is mounting a huge challenge to the established political landscape, threatening the biggest upset in Wales for a century. Our panel of experts, who live and breathe Welsh politics, look at what lies ahead.
Event 24 – Saturday 29 November 2025, 2.30pm
John Mullan and Rachel Parris talk to Sarah Churchwell
Jane Austen: 250 Years
In the 250th anniversary year of Jane Austen’s birth, join authors John Mullan and Rachel Parris as they talk to academic Sarah Churchwell about Austen’s enduring legacy, and offer up a new understanding of her work and why it continues to speak to us.
Event 27 – Saturday 29 November 2025, 4pm
Kim Leadbeater talks to Jennifer Nadel
The Case for Compassion
Kim Leadbeater, who became MP for Batley and Spen a few years after her sister Jo Cox was murdered, is behind the assisted dying legislation which passed the House of Commons last year.
A year on from that landmark achievement, Leadbeater talks to broadcaster and founder of the Think Tank Compassion in Politics, Jennifer Nadel, about the state of British politics today, how laws can solve some of the difficult problems that society faces, and what we can do to combat the divisive discourse the UK is currently seeing.
Event 30 – Saturday 29 November 2025, 5.30pm
James Fox talks to Kate Humble
Craftland: A Journey Through Britain’s Lost Arts and Vanishing Trades
Celebrate the craftsmanship that has shaped our surroundings, with award-winning broadcaster and art historian James Fox, and hear about some of the country’s last remaining master craftspeople.
Fox, director of studies in History of Art at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, talks to writer and broadcaster Kate Humble, who promotes traditional rural crafts and skills through her smallholding, Humble by Nature.
Event 33 – Saturday 29 November 2025, 7pm
Jehan Alfarra, Lyse Doucet and Imran Khan talk to Bethan McKernan
Reporting on the Middle East
What does it mean to tell the stories of the Middle East in a time of conflict, displacement, and rapid change? How do reporters deal with challenging conditions? And what is the mental toll of covering war?
BBC journalist Lyse Doucet, British-Palestinian journalist Jehan Alfarra, and Aljazeera Middle East correspondent Imran Khan take us behind the scenes in a wide-ranging conversation about the power of personal narratives, the responsibility of journalists to amplify voices often unheard, and how to navigate the truth.
Event 36 – Saturday 29 November 2025, 8.30pm
Oyinkan Braithwaite, Mick Herron and Adam Rutherford
Hay Festival Book of the Year 2025
A panel of literary stars take us on a lively tour of the year in books, as we get ready to crown the 2025 Hay Festival Book of the Year. Prepare for a high-octane celebratory evening of all things books.
Oyinkan Braithwaite, Mick Herron, Adam Rutherford and special guests talk us through the shortlist for the award, plus the books they have read this year, their books of the year, those they raced through, the ones that languished unread, the ones they wished they had read and the ones, as authors, they wish they had written.
Event 45 – Sunday 30 November 2025, 2.30pm
Michael Poll
Hay Music: Guitar Concert
Virtuoso guitarist Michael Poll returns to Hay Music to perform two suites by JS Bach and a piece by Federico Moreno Torroba (1891-1982), a Spanish composer specially remembered for his contributions to the classical guitar repertoire.
JS Bach: Suite for Lute BWV 995 in G Minor
JS Bach: Suite for Lute BWV 996 in E Minor
Federico Moreno Torroba: Suite Castellana
THE S. MARY’S BAR WILL BE OPEN AT ALL THE EVENTS: COFFEE/TEA AND OUR CELEBRATED HOMEMADE CAKES BY DAY; WINE, BEER, SOFT DRINKS AND CAKES IN THE EVENING.
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Friday 19th December, 7 pm
Hay Music Grand Christmas Concert with Vox Urbane
The highly-praised London-Based choir, Vox Urbane, presents a Grand Christmas concert with a wide range of inspiring music from across the ages. Programme to include:
William Byrd: Lullaby My Sweet Little Baby
Tomas Luis de Victoria: Queen Vidistis Pastores
Ralph Vaughan Williams: Wither’s Rocking Hymn
Peter Warlock: Bethlehem Down
Elizabeth Poston: Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
Herbert Howells: Sing Lullaby
Arvo Pärt: The Deer’s Cry
John Tavener: The Lamb
Errollyn Wallen: Peace on Earth
Sally Beamish: In the Stillness
For more details and tickets see Hay Music