SEVERAL exciting new events have been added to the programme at the Hay Festival, which runs until Sunday, June 2.

There is now a unique audience Q&A with actor, activist and 60s icon Terence Stamp, a reading of T S Eliot’s Four Quartets by Jeremy Irons and a reading of Byron, Keats and Shelley by husband and wife superstars Helen McCrory and Damian Lewis and Ricky Tomlinson joins Johnny Vegas to discuss their Sky Arts film Ragged (as in trousered philanthropists).

Tonight there will be a free reading by Man Booker International prizewinner Lydia Davis and shortlisted authors Intizar Husain and Marie N’Diaye.

The festival is also presenting screenings at Richard Booth’s Bookshop Cinema of a number of award-winning documentaries from around the world, with filmmakers introducing and doing Q&A sessions. The films are the Oscar-winning Searching for Sugar Man, Dror Moreh’s The Gatekeepers, Sarah Gavron’s Village at the End of the World, Bill Emmott and Annalisa Pirla’s Girlfriend in a Coma, Jeremy Thomas’s Kon-Tiki, Norma Percy’s Iran and the West, the Candida Brady and Jeremy Irons film Trashed, Helen Lawson’s A Summer Hamlet and 5 Broken Cameras by Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi. Screenings are from 10.30am to 1pm daily.

To book, go to hayfestival.org, call the box office on 01497 822629 or email boxoffice@hayfestival.org.