Hay Literary Festival 2025 unveils first wave of speakers, including Michael Morpurgo and Richard Dawkins
Annual Hay Literary Festival announces next year’s guests ahead of first ticket sales
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Your support makes all the difference.Hay Festival 2025 has revealed its initial lineup, featuring celebrated figures from the worlds of literature, comedy, politics, and music.
Set in the charming town of Hay-on-Wye on the Welsh border, the festival is renowned as one of the world’s premier literary gatherings. Next year’s event, running from 22 May to 1 June, promises its most ambitious programme yet, with over 600 events to be unveiled in March.
Among the early highlights are beloved author Michael Morpurgo, Nobel laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, and Albanian President Edi Rama. They’ll be joined by comedians Chris McCausland and Miranda Hart, along with broadcasters Susie Dent, Emma Barnett, and Stacey Dooley.
For music lovers, performances by Billy Ocean and Tim Rice are set to headline, while comedy acts Al Murray and Katherine Ryan will add their signature wit to the mix. Children’s favourites Michael Rosen and MC Grammar will delight younger audiences, ensuring the festival offers something for all ages.
Early bird tickets are now available for Hay Festival members, patrons, and benefactors, with general sales opening this Friday. A curated selection of events will also be streamed live via the Online Festival Pass, available in March.
Julie Finch, Hay Festival Global CEO, said: “Hay Festival next spring truly has something for everyone. It’s a space for bold ideas, inspiring stories, and meaningful debate, all set against the stunning backdrop of Hay-on-Wye.”
The festival continues to thrive as a platform for dialogue, with historians Tom Holland, William Dalrymple, and Ben Macintyre offering sweeping narratives, while personal reflections from Welsh poet Gwyneth Lewis, lawyer Sayeeda Warsi, and Radiohead bassist Colin Greenwood provide a more intimate perspective.
Finch summed up the festival’s ethos: “You find people talking to each other who have never met before because they’ve been so inspired by something or they so strongly disagree, which is also really good.”
Finch continued: “We’re not looking for harmony – what we’re doing is we’re creating an environment where you can have difficult conversations and you can share viewpoints and there’s respect. But also, you go away thinking about something in a new way.
“The conditions of that are this beautiful setting, the stages that we create and the way we curate really carefully who’s on stage. But we’re not telling people what to say – the debate flows inevitably and that’s what Hay is so brilliant at.”
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