You’d be forgiven for thinking that the Hay Festival might be a set of clever clogs pondering the merits of remote poetry. Wrong. It’s a very buzzy affair, and intelligent whilst still being very accessible. There’s a pretty hefty chapter on glamour too, with this year Rob Lowe promoting his new tome Stories I Only Tell My Friends - and the festival a-dither with gossip and chit-chat on the A-List star.

Although it’s a typically Welsh day – chilly and damp – the atmosphere is very warm and friendly. Crowds of people lounge in Graze, scoffing their ‘posh pizzas’ and drinking red wine;  amiably queue to sit in on recordings of Sky Arts’ ( one of the main sponsors ) The Book Show with Mariella Frostrup; and families enjoy the really sweet Hay Fever, with events and activities for the little ones.

The town of Hay – a couple of miles from the festival site, with regular shuttle buses to it  – is postcard-pretty. And, again, hordes of people cram into the coffee and bookshops, keen to broaden their minds, rub shoulders with their hero-author or just soak up the cultured atmosphere.

There are plenty of talks – all of them packed – with authors as far-ranging as Nobel Laureate V.S. Naipaul ( on Sunday he rather excitingly shook hands with his arch-enemy, fellow writer Paul Theroux, after a 15 year feud ) to Nigella Lawson ( who says that cookery is suffering from the Cowell effect  and that we’re too judgemental about food. )

I go along to hear author Esther Freud ( Hideous Kinky, Love Falls ) and former Financial Times journalist and founder of the Guardian Review Annalena McAfee chat to former Express editor and broadcaster Rosie Boycott on their respective new books Lucky Break, about the acting world, and The Spoiler, on journalism.

Freud – a former actress herself – reads from her book beautifully, her prose conjuring up the intense world of endless auditions, repertory theatre and dreams fulfilled, but, more usually, broken. Her main character, Charlie,recently out of drama school and going out with Rob, a slightly older and more successful actor, gets very excited at the prospect of starring in a new movie,  and reads the script to her boyfriend.

“You can’t do that, it’s porn,” says Rob, “ It says ‘big heat’ which is f*****g.”

And from the dreams of integrity shattered in the acting arena to much the same in journalism: McAfee’s debut novel pits Honor Tait, a veteran war correspondent in the mould of Clare Hollingworth and Marguerite Higgins against young hack Tamara Sim, of celeb supplement Psst.

It’s a comment on the dumbing down of news publishing, our thirst for gossip and the death of proper, old-fashioned, factual journalism in the face of personality, opinion and celebrity.

“I had to do a rather sickening course of reading the Mail,” comments McAfee, when asked what research she had to do for the book.

“ It’s just so full of hate,” concurs Freud.

But Rosie Boycott, as a former editor herself, hits the bullseye, commenting that the festival itself, despite being about ‘high’ culture still has its head turned by a sprinkle of showbiz.

“ I was just thinking that Rob Lowe is plastered all over Hay. It could’ve come straight out of your book,” she says.

To me, though, that’s the beauty of the festival. It doesn’t matter that Lowe, known for his brilliant performance in The West Wing, but, previously, a hard-partying member of the Brat Pack group of actors and that infamous sex video,  has star billing and  rubs along with the likes of AC Grayling, regarded as Britain’s most popular and widely read philosopher. And let’s face it, writers have become celebs. They certainly are to their readers, which is why so many flock to Hay.

But it’s the mixture of people from cooks, politicians, creatives,  journalists ,actors and thinkers,  all with the common link and love of writing, that makes Hay so special and conjures up new ideas, great collaborations and, indeed, rather fabulous parties…..

The Hay Festival, until June 5th

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About the author

Loma-Ann Marks
Loma was a performer and freelance writer before becoming a journalist on the Daily Star Sunday, Daily Star and Express. She's the Founder and Editor of Culture Compass. North, South, East or West? I'll go anywhere. I like to think that I'm a pretty good map reader ( not everyone would agree ) but then I remind them that I navigated my way around the Paris one-way system with NO mistakes. High Class or Common or Garden? High class in the garden. Clothes or Culture? Culture in new clothes. My best night out ever made me feel....... That things would never be the same again. And they surely weren't the following day.

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