By Virginia and Jonathan

I didn’t get to any more events, but Jonathan had one last gig – Frank Cottrell Boyce. Given that the children’s programme is one of the main reasons we come (and has meant the kids have seen some fabulous author over the years) I thought it was time to hear from a 12 year old.

So over to you Jonathan:

He started off by asking what happened on our first day of primary school.  He asked a few people – one hurt their head, one fell in a water fountain – but his experience was by far the worst.   The weekend before he started he’d been introduced to Dr Who and the Daleks.  Boyce was wearing a bow tie(which was unusual) and he didn’t want to go in as people were laughing at him.  His teacher was an Irish nun with a long wimple and a dress that went down to her feet. It was a dark blue and she was stretching out her arm to reach him and his first thought was ‘Oh my God, there’s a small blue Irish Dalek coming after me!”

He then read from his latest (and in my opinion greatest) book ‘The Astounding Broccoli Boy’. It was very funny. He read one chapter in which two boys, who have turned green, manage to get out of the hospital thanks to a window cleaner’s  cot. And in a stunning turn of events the main character, Rory Rooney, drives a bin lorry through the centre of London.

After that he went to some questions. After several, he was asked if he was going to write a sequel to one of his books ‘Cosmic’ . He said he would like to, and as an afterthought read the first few paragraphs from  ‘Cosmic’. ‘Cosmic’ is about a twelve year old boy called Liam Digby who is very tall, so tall that some people even think he’s a grown up. After telling a few fibs he ends up being shown in assembly as the new head of media studies. And all sorts of trouble occurs.

Frank Cottrell Boyce, is in my opinion, one of the funniest authors ever, and this was the best talk I’ve seen this year at the Hay Festival.

Photo: Finn Beales

My first event and my first ever experience of the Hay Festival and I knew it was going to be amazing. Having followed Letters Live for more than a year and finally receiving a copy of Letters of Note at Christmas; the anticipation was immense. As we stood in the queue to the Tata Tent, Stephen Fry strode boldly by, we gazed in awe. The excitement was at fever pitch and we were not disappointed.

by Beth

Ironically framed by The Telegraph Stage, these two left-wing political commentators bookended the talk by criticising the role that the right-supporting media has played during the recent election.

Weaving a tale of increasingly disheartening portent, they mapped Cameron and Osborne’s journey from ‘hugging huskies’ before the 2010 election to appointing climate change denier Owen Pattinson within weeks. The audience could not help but trace the parallels between then and now. The on-going series of astonishing appointments wouldn’t be out of place in a satirical nightmare. What’s more, Toynbee and Walker showed how a similar sleight of hand had been played with the electorate over austerity, which, as Toynbee emphasised to great applause, was ideologically fuelled rather than driven by necessity.

So what are the answers? Audience members were literally jumping up and down to get their voice heard in this time of uncertainty. Neither of the speakers could really offer a balm to ease the prospect of the fixed-term five-year stretch ahead. Even Polly criticised the Labour party’s inability to find the right language to communicate their competence in the face of Tory slander. What is worse, neither of them seemed hopeful of a government change in 2020. In fact, both of them nodded to the potential of grassroots movements and extra-parliamentary political activism, such as Britain Uncut. This is not the first or last time that protest marches were genuinely suggested from panels so far during the festival – we have heard this from eminent barristers and green energy proponents alike this weekend. For a middle-class orientated literature festival this is surely an omen of the unease felt by many.

Rather than inspiring and exciting me, as the thought of togetherness and activism usually does, this made me feel cast adrift. It seemed as if they were saying: it’s up to you to do something. Politics has failed. Something else needs to happen but we don’t quite know what. From two such renowned faces on the popular politics stage, this is worrying to say the least. It’s not just the politicians who don’t have any answers – the commentators seem to have lost their vision too. 

As we were all reluctantly herded out of the tent, there was a lot of discussion. Fellow audience members’ communal frowns and hopeful snippets of advice to each other were the only glimmers of light through the post-talk gloom. Overall, Cameron’s Coup was a highlight of the festival – or would have been, if both Toynbee and Walker hadn’t constantly repeated the mantra that young people are a waste of space in politics at the moment. Reflexively, these supposedly liberal figures replied dismissively to all questions raised by younger audience members. Toynbee urged one passionate fellow liberal to ‘go and read up a bit more about it’ before criticising Labour.

Because of this, the moment was lost to take this sense of gloom and offer opportunities to grow these ideas into new possibilities for my generation. I was a fervent first voter this election and have experienced and witnessed the desperation and tears that the outcome of Cameron’s coup has had on everyone I know or care about. I can tell you, Polly, that young people are engaged in politics and I urge you to go and ‘read up a bit more about it’ before dismissing the next generation of political commentators.

by Beth

Hollie McNish is the main event at Hay for any sane Spoken Word enthusiast. Her YouTube videos are top of my most watched, but this is the first time I’ve been lucky enough to catch her in the act. A quirky group of people with poetry in their eyes drifts into the Ring Stage’s circular yurt venue, like moths to a flame. We are surrounded by wild flowers and soft evening light.

Hollie is introduced in the How The Light Gets In programme as the first poet to have recorded at Abbey Road Studios, but she has a far from Beatles-esque bravado as she hurries onto stage, shrugs off her coat and bag and falls into place at the microphone. Sparkly eyes, quick smile, no nonsense vibe, her performance tick is a tendency to lovingly readjust the mic. She is a clutter of contradictions – says she writes poetry to avoid confrontation yet seems at ease before a crowd of seasoned Hay goers. It might help that she didn’t really know about the philosophy festival, which is a mistake that many Hay Festival fanatics make. Hollie starts by apologising that they’ve put her in with the comedians – she’s cut her poem about stabbing, but still tells us to prepare for a more sombre experience than the billing suggests.

Yet within minutes we’re laughing so hard we can barely catch our breath. Her poems mix tender rhythmic odes to her Grandmas with sharp rhymes cutting into the idiocy of anti-immigrant rhetoric and sexist media attitudes. Her poem ‘Eat My Fig’ can be played over Flo Rida’s ‘Blow My Whistle’ as a witty social commentary on the ridiculous metaphors used by popular rap artists. Her poem ‘Megatron’ shows the miracle of motherhood and the changes of pregnancy from a new perspective that has us giggling and tearing up at the same time. And she ties it all together with such finesse that her self-conscious meta-textual nod ‘I was told I had to include something called a narrative arc’ fools nobody. She is a performance poetry guru, with quick, technical brilliance. Her syllables ripple effortlessly from line to line, with occasional isolated stresses for emphasis.

The line of mesmerised fans queuing up afterwards, to buy her Burning Eye published book ‘Cherry Pie’ and receive a hug is a testament to her inspiring, assertive energy. Go and see McNish if you get a chance. Or any Spoken Word artist, for that matter – if you don’t know performance poetry, one set-long hit is enough to make you a lifelong addict. And make sure to sound out what else How The Light Gets In has to offer over the next week or so.

 It starts with a tingle

…says author Graham Swift, as he tries to explain his process of writing, having returned to the genre of the short story after an absence of many years. This was how he started his writing career, as a teller of short stories, and at that time he never imagined becoming a novelist.

Nine novels later and he’s published a collection of 25 stories called England and other stories His belief is that the function of fiction is ‘to reveal the invisible world, the unspoken, I try to tell a story that wouldn’t otherwise be told’ he said, he is drawn to those inarticulate characters as ‘most of life is inarticulate.’ He then read ‘Saving Grace’ from the collection, a simple but cautionary tale of love, race and morality.

The genesis of this book was the 2008 Cheltenham Literary Festival and a battle with Mary Beard over the relative merits of the Greeks and Romans. Edith won the debate and resolved to take a break from academic books and write something for a wider audience, a book that might help pay her children’s university tuition fees.

Her enthusiasm for the subject started early. Most eight year olds were reading the Beano when Edith first became interested in the ancient Greeks.

The Greeks were seagoing. The Ancient Greek words for ship and mind were almost identical and they anthropomorphised their vessels. To understand the Greeks you have to appreciate how important the water is to Greek civilisation. In Greek mythology many of the heroes are sea captains and great swimmers.  The Odyssey is a prime example. Greek myths are also unlike any others with their stories about the raw pursuit of power and influence.

Edith claimed to be nervous but a more animated, enthused and confident classicist would be hard to imagine.

Rupert Everett is one of our most feted actors but he’s a great essaying too having been compared to Evelyn Waugh, Noel Coward and even Lord Byron.   His new memoir ‘Vanished Years’ is brim full of vividly described escapades with friends, family and A list celebrities. On paper Everett  is hilarious, self deprecating, captivating, comic and reflective.  He is all those things in person too.

The audience is packed and expectant, we spot Jeremy Irons, who will later be reading from T.S Elliot’s Four Quartets, in the crowd.  Everett takes the stage, glass of wine in hand.  His writing is candid, so much so her tells us that he fell out with Madonna over a previous book, though he adds he still adores her.   He is also a big fan of Oscar Wilde about whom he speaks intensely and of his importance to the gay cause.

Everett is generous with his advice to young aspiring actors “if you want to get a head, get a life first” and don’t be afraid of failing; “failure is the manure” that’s keeps you going and brings success in the end.  At the end of the hour the applause is resounding and a longs queue springs up at the festival bookshop to buy the new memoir .