Michael Sheen, Yulia Navalnaya and Miranda Hart are among those due to appear at the 2025 Hay festival, organisers have announced.
The UK’s most famous literary festival has unveiled its 2025 programme, made up of more than 600 events set to take place between 22 May and 1 June in Hay-on-Wye, Powys. The core themes for the 38th iteration of the spring festival will be “the impacts of AI, health and wellbeing, new political orders and intergenerational exchanges,” according to Hay festival CEO Julie Finch.
As well as Navalnaya, the widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, there are a number of activists set to speak at the festival, including the US president’s niece, writer and psychologist Mary Trump and Gisele Pelicot’s daughter Caroline Darian.
Chef and Guardian writer Yotam Ottolenghi, artist Grayson Perry and actor and podcaster Jameela Jamil are also due to appear, as are broadcasters Susie Dent, Stacey Dooley and Lorraine Kelly.
Novelists make up much of the programme, and this year’s lineup includes Hanif Kureishi, Nobel laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah and Elif Shafak. Young readers will be able to attend events with children’s authors including Jacqueline Wilson, Julia Donaldson and Katherine Rundell.
And fans of music and comedy also have plenty to look forward to, with Paloma Faith, Brian Eno, Sara Pascoe and Katherine Ryan among those due to speak and perform.
Hay festival president Stephen Fry said he is “delighted to be returning to Hay Festival – one of my favourite places on Earth.”
“Besides the fun and joy of gathering to share stories,” the festival is “also the antidote to disinformation and division,” he added.
Last year, two days into the festival, Hay dropped its principal sponsor Baillie Gifford after boycotts from speakers and performers over the firm’s links to Israel and fossil fuel companies. The investment management company subsequently cancelled all of its remaining sponsorship deals with literary festivals, and, last November, the 2024 winner of the Baillie Gifford prize for nonfiction, Richard Flanagan, refused to accept the £50,000 prize money unless the fund manager shared a plan to reduce its investment in fossil fuel extraction and increase investments in renewables. Hay festival organisers have confirmed that Baillie Gifford will not be sponsoring this year’s festival.
Tickets for the 2025 Hay festival are on sale now to Hay festival members, patrons and benefactors at hayfestival.org. General sale tickets are available from noon on 14 March.
