5
pic: FINN BEALES
Reiniger Fairytales (1934-1955), Auden’s Nightmail
(Harry Watt, 1936), Pinter’s The Caretaker (Clive Donner, 1963), and the Beat poets in Wholly Com- munion (Peter Whitehead, 1965). There will also be some fi lm tie-ins. After the immense success of the fi lm An Education, I would expect that the talk by Lyn Barber (Sat 29), the journalist whose memoir forms the basis of the fi lm, will be packed. I know I want to go to it. In between times take a workshop in Cookery, Film- making, Rock-Riffs Guitar or Beat-matching and Scratching. Then read the papers and celeb spot in a Penguin deckchair on the green, wander into town for a Pimm’s and a browse at the Honesty Bookstore and the multitude of other wonderful bookshops dotted about. Nip in to see me (Susie Wild) and my word cloud at the Hay Poetry Jamboree in the Salem Chapel (Thurs 3-Sat 5 June), along with many other fantastically innovative poets including Geraldine Monk, Richard Gwyn and Childe Roland across the closing weekend. If you don’t fi nd me there, I’d haz- ard a guess I’ll be drinking champagne at the launch of Sixteen Shades Of Crazy, valley writer Rachel Trezise’s fi rst novel proper for Harper Collins’ new imprint Blue Door.
The Guardian Hay Festival, Hay-on-Wye, Fri 28 May-Sun 6 June 2010. Tickets: events individually priced, from free. Info: 01497 822629 / www.hayfestival.com
of Peter Florence’s
FAVOURITE HAY MOMENTS
Organiser Peter Florence takes us through the best of the festival’s 22-year history
1. THE WHY OF THE HAY
Way back in 1987 my father and I had come home from a British Council theatre tour in Spain and we’d done a few festivals and they’d been thrilling - a buzzy, energised crowd you don’t get at the- atres every day. We were having supper at home with some friends who’d come up for the weekend, and after shopping and walking there was nothing on offer in the evening. It was as simple as ‘what could we do here that might be entertaining and a bit of an adventure?’. Twenty fi ve years on and 75 festivals later it’s pretty much the same; just bigger, and with more friends round the table.
2. SALMAN RUSHDIE’S
SURPRISE APPEARANCE
Quite early in 1992 we knew the Israeli novel- ist David Grossman had to withdraw from his conversation with Martin Amis. So my father got to step onstage and say, bascially - “I’m sorry we haven’t been able to bring the advertised writer to you today (big groan) but we have an exciting sub- stitute and we’re delighted to say that for the fi rst time in public since Valentine’s Day 1989 and the introduction of the Fatwa we can welcome Salman Rushdie.” There was about 3 seconds stunned silence and then just a whooping roar of welcome. I think he’d been living up in the Beacons anyway so it was like a home gig for him.
3. POLICE SHOW UP...
AND JOIN IN
We had an amazing Van Morrison concert in 1999. He was fl ying. The police arrived at eleven to close us down and the chief was a fan. He said, “I’m not stopping this, it’s fantastic”. Van Morrison played for almost fi ve hours, taking requests until half- past one in the morning. One guy left at midnight, but came back with his 10-year-old son half an hour later “to see magic being conjured”.
4. TED HUGHES BATTLES
THE ELEMENTS
Just before he died Ted Hughes came to Hay for the fi rst time. He read in a thunderstorm. It was a colossal and elemental struggle of his words and the tent that felt like it might lift off at any moment.
5. LEAFING THROUGH
THE AGES
The greatest pleasure’s not really a moment at all, or if it is it’s a great, long, time-warping extended moment that meets young writers and comedians and singers early in their careers and helps fi nd audiences and appreciation for them. Artists emerge here because of the audiences who are pretty amazing and keen to discover new ideas. It’s thrilling that some of the people who started here largely unknown have shared their careers with us now they’re big, global stars – people like Eddie Izzard, Bryn Terfel, Owen Sheers, DBC Pierre, Zadie Smith, Yann Martel and Carol Ann Duffy.
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