A FULL schedule of writers, thinkers and entertainers have been announced by the Hay Festival for this year’s Winter Weekend at the Powys border book town of Hay-on-Wye on November 28 to December 1.

The Friday night will see the Christmas lights switched on, with the honours this year being done by the singer, songwriter, BBC broadcaster, and founder of The Good Life Experience Cerys Matthews.

Cerys has written a Sunday Times bestseller, as well as two children’s books, and her new book 'Where The Wild Cooks Go' invites readers to cook their way around the world, with a Spotify playlist ready for each country, as well as poems, proverbs, curiosities and some surprising aspects of world history. She will be talking about the book on the Baille Gifford stage immediately after the switch-on.

Now in its 20th year, the Winter Weekend offers a range of family workshops, woodland walks, and town festivities, as well as the main programme which will include appearances from Booker Prize 2019 winner Bernardine Evaristo; artist Jackie Morris; poets Mererid Hopwood and Owen Sheers; BBC broadcaster Emma Barnett, Extinction Rebellion’s Rupert Read; the Science Museum’s Tilly Blyth; Labour MP Jess Phillips; historians Tom Holland, Sarah Churchwell, Max Hastings, and Mike Pitts; writer Laura Cumming; cameraman Lindsay McCrae journalist Afua Hirsch; and illustrator Henny Beaumont. Plus, late night music, comedy and cabaret from Chainska Brassika, Fr Richard Williams, Fiona Evans and the Hay Festival Choir, Jason Byrne, Russell Kane, Sarah-Louise Young, Mid Wales Opera,and a surprise all-star Shakespeare performance.

There will also be a special tribute to the self-styled ‘King of Hay’, Richard Booth who died earlier this year.