Hay Festival announces return of expert panel series The News Review for 2025

‘The Independent’ will host a selection of experts to dissect the day’s breaking news

Hay Festival will partner with The Independent once again to reprise The News Review, a series of morning panels with renowned guests.

Spread over 11 days, the festival will feature an overflowing itinerary of over 600 events in Hay-on-Wye between 22 May and 1 June 2025. The star-studded lineup includes Yulia Navalnaya, Michael Sheen, Jameela Jamil and many more.

The Independent will host a session of The News Review across nine mornings, with the publication’s journalists exploring current affairs with leading figures from politics, science, the arts and comedy.

Joining TheIndependent to dissect the breaking news of the day will be historians David Olusoga and Kehinde Andrews, comedian Sara Pascoe, broadcasters Jon Sopel and Anushka Asthan and world-renowned philosopher AC Grayling.

Journalists Lyse Doucet and Misha Glenny will address the shifting nuances of geopolitics while the subject of climate science will be discussed by academic Friederike Otto.

Hay Festival president Stephen Fry highlighted the festival’s important role in this year’s tumultuous social and political climate, stating: “Besides the fun and joy of gathering to share stories, it is also the antidote to disinformation and division.”

Geordie Greig, Editor-In-Chief of The Independent, said: “Hay Festival remains the world’s greatest exchange for the best works of literature and a forum for ideas, philosophy, politics and provocative debate. I am so pleased that The Independent can once again be at the heart of this meeting of minds, bringing together our journalists with luminaries from all walks of life to discuss the pressing matters affecting us all.

“The Independent has more than 20 million readers in the UK alone, many of whom are passionate about culture in all its forms. I’m looking forward to a fascinating, thought-provoking series, discussing and shaping the news of the day.”

Meanwhile, Julie Finch, Hay Festival Global CEO, added: “We’re delighted to be working with The Independent on the News Review series, gathering festival guests each morning to discuss and debate the day’s headlines. With the news agenda changing so quickly, this opens up a space in our programme to be reactive and keep pace with the world around us.”

The full breakdown of this year’s News Review line-up can be found below:

Saturday 24 May 2025, 10am –Wye Stage

Mike Berners-Lee, sustainability researcher and professor in the Institute for Social Futures at Lancaster University, author of There is No Planet B; Misha Glenny, geopolitics journalist, author of McMafia.

Sunday 25 May 2025, 10am – Global Stage

Friederike Otto, Senior Lecturer in Climate Science, Imperial College London.

Monday 26 May 2025, 10am – Meadow Stage

David Olusoga, historian and author of Black and British, presenter of Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners; Helen Rebanks, farmer and author of The Farmer’s Wife.

David Olusoga will be appearing on ‘The Independent’s News Review panel (Getty Images)

Tuesday 27 May 2025, 10am – Discovery Stage

TBA

Wednesday 28 May 2025, 10am – Global Stage

Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson, Paralympic athlete and presenter; Sara Pascoe, award-winning comedian, host of BBC2’s Great British Sewing Bee, author of Sex Power Money.

Thursday 29 May 2025, 10am – Meadow Stage

Kehinde Andrews, Professor of Black Studies at Birmingham City University, author of The New Age of Empire; Havana Marking, award-winning director of Undercover: Exposing the Far Right.

Friday 30 May 2025, 10am – Discovery Stage

AC Grayling, philosopher, founder and principal of the New College of the Humanities at Northeastern University, London; Jon Sopel, former BBC North America editor, host of The News Agents, author of Strangeland.

Sara Pascoe will be appearing on ‘The Independent’s News Review panel (Getty Images)

Saturday 31 May 2025, 10am – Discovery Stage

Anushka Asthana,  ITV’s deputy political editor, author of Taken As Red: How Labour Won Big and the Tories Crashed the Party; Lyse Doucet, the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent and Senior Presenter.

Sunday 1 June 2025, 10am – Wye Stage

Sigrid Rausing, publisher of Granta magazine and Granta Books; Philippe Sands KC, Professor of Law at University College London and author of East West Street.

Special guests at Hay this year include Good Omens star Michael Sheen, The Good Place actor Jameela Jamil, artist Grayson Perry, comedian Miranda Hart, musician and author Paloma Faith, ITV presenter Lorraine Kelly and activist Katie Piper. They will be joined by British screenwriter and producer Jesse Armstrong, one of the minds behind Succession, Peep Show and Four Lions.

As well as its usual literary offerings, the Festival will launch its first cinema section with the MUBI cinema hosting screenings of Bergman Island; How to Have Sex; Fallen Leaves; Queer; First Cow; Alcarràs; Dahomey; Decision to Leave; Aftersun; Priscilla; Perfect Days; Petite Maman; and The Worst Person in the World.

They will be followed by discussion and analysis by screenwriters including Hot Milk’s Rebecca Lenkiewicz, The Power’s Sarah Quintrell, and His Dark Materials producer Jane Tranter. Conclave novelist Robert Harris will also discuss the Oscar-nominated adaptation of his work.