BBC unveils unparalleled Hay Festival presence

The BBC and Hay Festival (26 May-5 June, 2016) today unveiled plans for unparalleled coverage of this year’s event across television, radio and online, plus the line-up for the BBC Tent, as part of their ongoing global partnership.

Published: 4 May 2016
The BBC will give everyone, everywhere, the best seat at the table.
— Peter Florence, Director of Hay Festival
  • Maxine Peake and Russell T Davies in conversation about BBC One’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream
  • BBC Radio 4’s World at One to broadcast from the BBC Tent at the festival for the first time
  • John McGrath to give the BBC Wales Patrick Hannan Lecture at the festival
  • BBC Radio 3 launches the New Generation Thinkers for 2016 with the Arts and Humanities Research Council
  • Guitarist Morgan Szymanski invite audiences to play music together in a mass ‘Hay Jam’ as part of BBC initiative Get Playing for BBC Music Day
  • Dame Jacqueline Wilson to introduce clips of Hetty Feather 

BBC News: On the radio, BBC Radio 4’s World at One will broadcast from the site for the first time, from Monday 30 May - Friday 3 June in front of a live audience, reporting daily on issues ranging from the EU referendum and US election to the latest thinking in the arts and sciences from around the world. On television, BBC Two’s Artsnight will film over the first weekend, presenting a Hay Festival special with Paul Mason on Friday 3 June.

BBC Childrens: CBBC comes to Hay! Blue Peter’s Lindsey Russell presents a Blue Peter Book Awards event at the festival. CBBC Book Club will be on site; plus there’s a unique chance to meet the creative talent behind the channel’s most popular programmes: CBBC’s new drama Jamie Johnson will be presented by the original book’s author Dan Freedman; Dame Jacqueline Wilson will introduce clips of the adaptation of her book Hetty Feather alongside the director; and actors and creators of the award-winning Wolfblood reveal how the show is made.

BBC World News will record four sessions for their literary series Talking Books to be broadcast on BBC World News; Martha Kearney will be in conversation with authors Marlon James and Peter Carey, and George Alagiah will be interviewing Lionel Shriver and Tahmima Anam. Flagship science and technology TV show Click will also be at Hay as presenter Spencer Kelly brings cutting-edge science to the festival.

BBC Drama: Hay presents events celebrating major BBC dramas including War and Peace with Andrew Davies, Shetland, Poldark, and Russell T Davies and Maxine Peake on the forthcoming BBC adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

BBC Radio: BBC Radio 4’s flagship lunchtime news programme World at One will broadcast daily from the festival with presenter Martha Kearney, alongside other popular Radio 4 programmes including Start the Week, Front Row, Four Thought, Inside Science, and Gardeners’ Question Time. For BBC Radio 3, Clemency Burton-Hill presents four Spanish-themed Lunchtime Concerts live from St Mary’s Church, Hay, from musicians including two current members of Radio 3’s New Generation Artists scheme, the Russian pianist Pavel Kolesnikov and British trombone virtuoso Peter Moore. World on 3 at Hay will feature the Senegalese superstar Baaba Maal, and there will also be special editions of Free Thinking, In Tune, The Essay and The Verb.

The festival will mark BBC Music Day - Friday 3 June - with a ‘Hay Jam’ as part of BBC initiative Get Playing on BBC Music Day as guitarist Morgan Szymanski invites amateurs and special guests to join him for an impromptu session.

John McGrath, founding Artistic Director of the National Theatre of Wales and now CEO and Artistic Director of Manchester International Festival, delivers the BBC Wales Patrick Hannan Lecture, broadcast live on BBC Radio Wales, while BBC Radio Wales’ Arts Show and BBC Radio Cymru’s cultural programme Stiwdio will also spotlight events. The BBC Wales and Arts Council of Wales music project, Horizons/Gorwelion, will provide a musical backdrop to the festival from folk to hip hop and everything in between.

In the BBC Tent, broadcasters, commissioners and controllers will be running sessions on arts documentaries including events on award-winning documentary strands Arena and Storyville, and Dan Cruickshank will discuss his BBC Four series on the British home.

In addition, there will be sessions on what makes a great radio adaptation; workshops on how to write the perfect script and masterclasses on how to break into the media. Plus information about Get Reading, the BBC’s new campaign celebrating the pleasures of reading.

On Sunday 29 May, the New Generation Thinkers 2016 are revealed as BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council continue in their project to find the next generation of broadcasters.

BBC Arts Online will stream sessions live and curate a selection of daily festival highlights, with selected content on BBC iPlayer. In the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare, selected sessions celebrating our greatest writer along with short films from Hay will be shown at www.bbc.co.uk/shakespearelives - an online festival from the BBC and British Council, to share the best events and performances from the UK with audiences all over the globe.

These and other videos will be showcased on Hay Festival: Talking About Shakespeare, a new digital platform launched with films from the world’s leading actors and academics, playwrights and directors, poets and novelists, giving insight into Shakespeare’s contemporary resonance and his understanding of our human hearts. Contributors include Judi Dench, Benedict Cumberbatch, Toni Morrison, Stephen Fry, Germaine Greer, Simon Schama, Jeanette Winterson, Tom Stoppard and Maxine Peake.

Jonty Claypole, Director of BBC Arts, says: “BBC Arts always aims to make the broadest range of arts programmes accessible to as many people as possible. Our partnerships with extraordinary arts and cultural organisations like Hay Festival help audiences who otherwise wouldn’t be able to attend these great events to have access to the best thinkers and writers from around the world in the comfort of their own homes via local, national and global BBC broadcasts.

“On the ground, this year’s BBC Tent offering at Hay will once again bring some of our best loved shows to audiences in Wales from Radio 4’s World at One to Dan Cruickshank introducing clips for BBC Four series At Home with the British. We’ll also have behind the scenes sessions, advance screenings and workshops featuring authors ranging from Dame Jacqueline Wilson to Lionel Shriver. Elsewhere at the festival, BBC Two’s Artsnight will be filming for the first weekend, BBC World News will bring us authors in conversation including Marlon James and Peter Carey and there will be sessions with talent from our landmark dramas including Shetland, Poldark and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. There really is something for everyone.”

Peter Florence, Director of Hay Festival, says: “Our partnership with BBC Arts means that conversations that take place in a field in Wales, on a beach in Cartagena, in a public square in Arequipa, are amplified to readers and thinkers in every country on Earth. It’s an extraordinary opportunity to be both local and global, intimate and public, to share stories and ideas beyond borders or silences. 

AH

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