LABOUR MPs Sir Keir Starmer and David Lammy, controversial feminist Germaine Greer, actresses Maxine Peake, Joanna Lumley and Eve Myles and comic stars Jo Brand, Jimmy Carr and Stephen Fry are just some of the names unveiled for this year’s Hay Festival.

This 2019 festival, which will run from May 23 to June 2, is welcoming literary award winners and celebrating major global anniversaries.

A new international Hay Festival project, Europa 28, launches, bringing together prominent female authors, thinkers, writers and scientists – one participant from each EU country, across genres and generations – to discuss their visions for the future of Europe.

Featuring over 600 speakers in events across 11 days, the festival also offers a vibrant schedule of late-night music, comedy and entertainment for all ages.

Peter Florence, director of Hay Festival, said: “Hay Festival is a space to think, and to think again, and to put the great issues of the day in a context of global history. Empires fall, technology empowers and enslaves us, faiths are shaken, orthodoxies disrupted and still we come together and talk and sing and dance, break bread and tell stories. Minds change. Government is fiendishly hard, democracy is vulnerable, and living together, the ‘Convivencia’ is a precious dream.

“The good news is that our potential is limitless, and friendship is our pleasure. Let’s talk. Let’s listen.”

Lectures at the 2019 festival will explore issues from Brexit to the state of libraries, with MP David Lammy, journalists Carole Cadwalladr and Fintan O’Toole (Heroic Failure), historian Bettany Hughes (Istanbul), novelist Elif Shafak, psychologist Steven Pinker (Enlightenment Now), physicist Paul Davies (The Demon in the Machine), translator Daniel Hahn, author Michael Rosen, and more.

World-changing novelists discuss their careers and launch new works, including Arundhati Roy, Ian McEwan (Machines Like Me), Jeanette Winterson (Frankissstein), Max Porter (Lanny), Amitav Ghosh (Gun Island), Siri Hustvedt (Memories of the Future), Pat Barker (The Silence of the Girls), Leila Slimani (Adele), Eric Vuillard (Order of the Day), Steinunn Sigurðardóttir (Heiða: A Shepherd at the Edge of the World), Mia Couto (Woman of the Ashes), and debuts from Wayetu Moore (She Would Be King), Isabella Hammad (The Parisian), and more.

Stars of stage and screen discuss their new work, including Matthew Hall and Ystradgynlais-based Eve Myles on Keeping Faith and Richard Eyre talks about his book Place to Place, while the BBC Tent hosts live broadcasts and recordings of flagship shows.

Poetry takes centre stage as actress Maxine Peake performs The Masque of Anarchy, 200 years after its first publication, Simon Armitage launches Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic, and more.

Global anniversaries are marked, including Da Vinci 500 with Jerry Brotton, Germaine Greer, and Ben Lewis (The Last Leonardo); Rembrandt 350 with Simon Schama; Tiananmen Square 30 with writers Xinran and Karoline Kan; Stonewall 50 with activist Paris Lees, and more.

Our world today is examined by Danny Dorling (Rule Britannia), Shadow Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer, Welsh Minister Eluned Morgan, Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Deborah Lipstadt (Antisemitism), Jared Diamond (Upheaval), Caroline Criado Perez (Invisible Women), and more.

The past is revisited by Stephen Fry (Mythos and Heroes), Henriette Van de Blom (The Art of Political Rhetoric), Mary Norris (Greek to Me), Kapka Kassabova (Border), David Olusoga, Max Hastings (Vietnam), Serhii Plokhy (Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy), Hallie Rubenhold (The Five), Joanna Lumley leads a panel to remember the late historian John Julius Norwich, and more.

Personal stories inspire, including Michael Fuller (Kill the Black one First), Angela Gallop (When the Dogs Don’t Bark), David Nott (War Doctor), Dina Nayeri (The Ungrateful Refugee), Katja Petrowskaja (Maybe Esther), Dustin Lance Black (Mama’s Boy), Jo Brand (Born Lippy), Stacey Dooley (On the Front Line With the Women who Fight Back), Emily Maitlis (Airhead), Elizabeth Day (How to Fail), Dolly Alderton (Everything I Know About Love), Lara Prior-Palmer (Rough Magic), Sir Robin Knox-Johnston (Running Free), Moby (Then It Fell Apart), and more.

New ideas and approaches in health, science and technology are explored by Michael Pollan (How to Change Your Mind), Frans de Waal (Mama’s Last Hug), Gina Rippon (The Gendered Brain), Linda Geddes (Chasing the Sun), David Rowan (Non-Bullshit Innovation), Martin Rees (On the Future), Hannah Critchlow (The Science of Fate), and more.

Nature and travel writers celebrate the wonders of the world around us, including Robert Macfarlane, (Underland), Raynor Winn (The Salt Path), Lucy Cooke (The Unexpected Truth About Animals), Erling Kagge (Silence), Horatio Clare (Something of his Art), super vet Noel Fitzpatrick (Listening to the Animals), Monty Don and Derry Moore (Japanese Gardens) and more.

Music, laughter and dancing keep the party going late with The Waterboys, Charlotte Martin, the Gipsy Kings, Ezra Furman, Baloji, Ibibio Sound Machine, The Benjamin Zephaniah Band, DJ Target, Sandi Toksvig, Jimmy Carr, Sindhu Vee, Bill Bailey, Sara Pascoe, Nish Kumar, and more.

Green Hay Forum (formerly Hay-on-Earth) opens the festival on Thursday, May 23 themed Food, Farming and Futures, while events through the week spotlighting sustainable issues feature Mary Robinson (Climate Justice), Martin Jones (Food Security Past and Present), Mike Berners Lee (There Is No Plan-et B), Dieter Helm (Green and Prosperous Land), and more.

Free to enter, the festival village is comprised of 10 tented venues, the Festival Bookshop, HAYDAYS courtyard, Wild Garden, Make and Take Tent, the Scribblers Hut, the Cube, the Mess Tent, and market stalls, cafés, exhibitions and restaurants.

Hay Festival’s free Programme for Schools opens the festival on Thursday, May 23 and Friday, May 24, while a series of projects encourage accessibility, including the Beacons Project, free tickets for students in higher education, a student exchange with Bradford Literary Festival, a day for adoptive families run with The Family Place, and Hay Compass, a special space on site to learn and discover for 16-25-year-olds, with free access to inspiring speakers.

Booking is already open to Friends of Hay Festival online (hayfestival.org) or on 01497 822 629. Public booking opens tomorrow (Friday, March 29).