For the earlybirds, Thursday night provides a taste of the packed 10 day programme to come.

Buy a full-access pass for access to tonight's debate, Local Heroes, as well as riveting documentary The F-Word and a live set by the trailblazing Trilobytes .

Rob Penn, David Held, Jenneth Parker. David Christie chairs.

The British high street is at war as local shops fight for survival against the big chains. Is localism a nimbyish fear of change or a progressive move empowering the people? Should we be pursuing notions of community or is the survival of the fittest always the best outcome?

FT writer Rob Penn, master of Durham College David Held, and Schumacher Institute thinker Jenneth Parker debate the value of localism.

Germaine Greer, Susan Faludi and Naomi Wolf, explore the meaning of feminism in this compelling documentary a century after the first International Women's Day.

"To liberate women we have to preserve their difference" - Germaine Greer

Giles Fraser, Hilary Rose, Bjorn Lomborg, Ziauddin Sardar. Jonathan Derbyshire chairs.

For centuries in the West we've looked forward to political, economic, and ethical advance. We've seen ourselves as on the upward curve of history. But the future looks uncertain, our values precarious. Do we need a new notion of progress and if so what would it be?

Giles Fraser, St. Paul's Canon until his recent resignation and former Oxford philosopher, debates the nature of progress with skeptical environmentalist Bjørn Lomborg, eminent feminist sociologist of science, Hilary Rose, and 'Britain's own Muslim polymath' (Prospect) Ziauddin Sardar.

From foot-stomping folk to electronic euphoria, join us for our explosive opening party.

This ticket gives you access to all the live sessions throughout the evening for a night to remember with: Emmy the Great, Cosmo Jarvis, Skinny Lister, Miss Maud's Folly, Kish Mauve, Colin Hoult, Mike Wozniak, HotDoc: The Secret Life of Chaos, HotDoc: The First Movie, and Mums Old Vinyl.

Kevin Warwick

Microprocessors in the human brain. Nano-robots in your bloodstream. Soon it might not be science fiction. Real-life cyborg and scholar Kevin Warwick offers a glimpse into the future.

"One of the world's most famous scientists" Wired

Mary Midgley, Ruth Padel, Ken Binmore. Christopher Hamilton chairs.

According to Richard Dawkins “Science is poetic, ought to be poetic and has much to learn from poets”. Can poetry really contribute to the progress of science or is the poet's eye 'in fine frenzy rolling' no more than an imaginative flourish?

Mathematician and game theorist Ken Binmore, moral philosopher Mary Midgley, and award-winning poet, novelist and great-greatgranddaughter of Charles Darwin Ruth Padel, examine the nature of science and art.

David Blunkett, Shaun Ley.

What do we understand by Britain, and by British identity? Former Home Secretary David Blunkett considers nationality with BBC Radio 4's Shaun Ley.

John Ellis, Nicholas Maxwell, Frank Close. Quentin Cooper chairs.

Since Newton’s classical apple cart was upset by relativity and quantum theory, physicists have been seeking a theory that would unify the macroscopic and the microscopic and explain everything. Are we getting closer, or is a final theory of matter and the universe impossible?

CERN theoretical physicist and coiner of the term 'theory of everything', John Ellis, best-selling Oxford physicist Frank Close, and philosopher of science Nicholas Maxwell investigate the limits of knowledge.

Brooke Magnanti, Nigel Mercer, Liz Kelly. Christopher Hamilton chairs.

Despite the recession plastic surgery is on a relentless rise. Is the ability to change how we look a freedom or a social shackle? Should we place a different value on natural and cosmetic beauty? And is all of this leading to a race of clones, or an aesthetic delight?

Brooke Magnanti, biologist and author of awardwinning blog Diary of a London Call Girl, eminent plastic surgeon Nigel Mercer, and sociologist and advocate Liz Kelly go under the knife.

Matt Jameson Evans, Mark Salter, Victoria Lambert. Ben Hammersley chairs.

Online pharmacies and medical databases are enabling individuals to bypass doctors. Is the democratisation of medical practice progress? Can patients be trusted to self-prescribe, or is medical authority necessary for our health?

Consultant psychiatrist and filmmaker Mark Salter, medical journalist Victoria Lambert, and surgeon and online medical entreupreneur Matt Jameson Evans explore future of democratised medicine.

Warren Ellis in conversation with Vassili Christodoulou

Novelist, scriptwriter and icon of British comics Warren Ellis talks to HowTheLightGetsIn's resident fantasist Vassili Christodoulou about dystopian America, the space age and breaking other people's websites with the power of Twitter.

Zoe Williams, Douglas Murray, David Aaronovitch, David Marquand. Rana Mitter chairs.

From the EU to the Arab Union, momentous decisions are increasingly driven not by national governments but by global or regional alliances. Are we witnessing the passing of the nation-state? Or are these new alliances as fragile and transient as the peace they are intended to maintain?

Times columnist David Aaronovitch, Oxford political theorist and former Labour politician David Marquand, Guardian columnist Zoe Williams and neo-conservative commentator Douglas Murray question the new world order.

Luciano Floridi

Can we prevent futureoutbreaks of digital warfare? Award-winning philosopher of the information Luciano Floridi, offers solutions to the threat of our age.

'Food for thought' Times Literary Supplement

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, John Kampfner, Gordon Lynch, Hugh Tomlinson. Samira Ahmed chairs.

In the wake of the phone-hacking scandal, the press finds itself beseiged. But what is the best answer for society? Is a fourth estate prepared to break the law essential for the health of democracy, or do journalists working outside of the law serve only their own self-interest?

Independent columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, MPs expenses and phone hacking barrister Hugh Tomlinson QC, Google free speech advisor John Kampfner and philosopher Gordon Lynch debate the power of the media.

Jonathan Jones, Peter Watson, Dennis Marks. Edith Hall chairs.

"Everything has been said. Everything has been written, everything has been done" Pascal.

Pascal wasn't the first  to fear that nothing new could happen in the artistic imagination. Can there be progress in art, forever surging forward and reinventing itself? Can we reconcile the hunger for novelty and innovation with art’s desire to speak to the timeless and universal?

Guardian art critic Jonathan Jones, writer, filmmaker and former director of the English National Opera Dennis Marks and historian of ideas Peter Watson debate the possibility of the new in the arts.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Dennis Marks, Padraig Reidy. Henrietta Moore chairs.

From TV to Twitter, comedy and the arts are often used to question, challenge and provoke. But should there be limits? In a connected globalised world do we need to take more heed of sensitivities, or is laughter and entertainment the best cure and taking offence an inappropriate response?

Independent columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Index on Censorship's Padraig Reidy and filmmaker and former director of the ENO Dennis Marks debate the limits of free speech.

Lyn Gardner, Leo Benedictus, Brian Dillon. Dennis Marks chairs.

As the deluge of online opinion threatens traditional quality control, do we need guidance to decide what’s great and what isn't in the world of the arts? Is the commentator and critic a dying voice of cultural authority or do we need direction more than ever? Democracy in the context of politics is assumed to be a good thing, but is it good for the arts?

Cultural theorist and Cabinet editor Brian Dillon, novelist Leo Bendeticus, and Guardian critic Lyn Gardner go in search of opinions worth having.

Peter Watson, Godfrey Barker, Georgina Adam. Gabriel Gbadamosi chairs.

The froth may have come off the art market, but superstar artists can still generate income we once associated only with rock stars. Does money enable artists to reach their potential or does it create superficial work? Do similar arguments apply to all forms of creativity?

Historian of ideas Peter Watson, critic, correspondent and ranconteur Godfrey Barker, FT and Art Newspaper market expert Georgina Adam debate the relationship between money and creativity.

Stephen Bayley

Stephen Bayley, one of Britain's leading cultural commentators, tells the untold story of how giant corporations became strangely vulnerable to the future.

“I don’t know anybody with more interesting observations about style, taste and contemporary design” - Tom Wolfe

A spectacular spectrum of enchanted songs, side-splitting laughter and vibrant live acts, from folk to rockabilly.

This ticket gives you access to all the live sessions throughout the evening. Go on a journey  with: Emily Barker, Chris T-T, Siôn Russell Jones, Mad Jack and the Hatters, Helen Keen, Nish Kumar, HotDoc: In Search of the Messiah, HotDoc: Beijing Swings, and the Deadmens DJs.

Godfrey Barker

Many people know that Htler was a painter, but few know about his passion for collecting art, a passion so great that it could make a man go to war. Godfrey Barker lifts the lid on history, and finds somethings closer to home than others. 

Midweek Festival ticket holders can attend this event

Leo Robson, Lars Iyer, Joanna Kavenna. Gabriel Gbadamosi chairs.

The 20th century saw Joyce, Beckett and Woolf rewrite the rule book for fiction. But to glance at a contemporary Booker Prize list, you could be forgiven for thinking the revolution had never happened. Was experimental fiction always a flash in the pan, or are we on the cusp of a new period of innovation and discovery?

Philosopher, novelist and blogger Lars Iyer, Orange prize-winning novelist Joanna Kavenna, and New Statesman and FT critic Leo Robson imagine the future of fiction.

The legendary chanteuse, multimedia artist and muse to a generation has been carrying her bohemian spirit around the world with her since the 1980s, entertaining, inspiring and gaining admiration from the likes of Iggy Pop, Mario Testino, Nancy Sinatra, Michael Nyman and Joni Mitchell.

“high cabaret from a different time and place” – The Quietus

“one of our best and most important talents” – Dangerous Minds

Mike Figgis, Sean Holmes, Robert Eaglestone. Joanna Kavenna chairs.

In a largely secular culture what are we to make of evil? In a rational and relativistic climate without superstitutions, have we lost a cultural space in which to engage with evil? Should we abandon the notion altogether as anachronistic or is it essential in the fight for a better world?

Filmmaker Mike Figgis, Artistic Director of the Lyric Hammersmith, Sean Holmes, and philosopher Robert Eaglestone explore the nature of evil and our response to it.

Michael Nyman

Michael Nyman introduces his first feature film. A shot-by-shot reconstruction of Dziga Vertov’s iconic Man with a Movie Camera, in which the original sequences are replaced with footage from his own archives, Nyman’s film is an experimental, urban meditation on life as it happens and as recorded by the human memory.

Followed by a Q

Don Cupitt

Has technological advancement replaced moral, spiritual and political progress? Radical theologian, broadcaster and philosopher Don Cupitt reflects on Nietzsche, the first world war, and the way we live now.

Rupert Sheldrake, Martin Evans, James Wilk. Isabel Hilton chairs.

Scientific advance is a roll call of eureka moments. But can they be planned? Does the institutional character of big science research militate against these critical imaginative leaps? Should we encourage the outsider and break the system of peer review in an attempt to create more eureka moments, or does good science require a strong establishment?

Oxford philosopher, psychologist and cybernetician James Wilk, Nobel Prize-winning stem cell researcher Sir Martin Evans, and outspoken independent scientist Rupert Sheldrake question how knowledge is created.

Maurice Glasman, Minette Marrin, Anatole Kaletksy. Gavin Hewitt chairs.

What do the principles of the French revolution mean to us today? Do liberty, equality and fraternity still have a guiding role to play in European politics, or has our complex, globalised present rendered these ideals redundant? If so, what should replace them?

BBC Europe Editor Gavin Hewitt asks columnist Minette Marrin, economist Anatole Kaletsky and political theorist Maurice Glasman to reassess the Enlightenment's sacred principles.

What makes a man an icon? Drawing on three decades as a campaigner against apartheid, MP Peter Hain examines the life of Nelson Mandela and the qualities which make him one of the world’s most potent symbols of the resilience of the human spirit.

Jules Evans, Peter Hacker, Matthew Syed. Felicity Evans chairs.

The Enlightenment proposed that reason would lead to a better society. But does rational thought result in a happier life? Is it sensible to look to philosophy to teach us how to live, or is personal well-being beyond the reaches of the intellect?

Philosopher, writer and happiness guru Jules Evans, eminent Oxford philosopher Peter Hacker, and Olympian and Times columnist Matthew Syed consider the limits of reason.

Matthew Hancock, Anatole Kaletsky, Isabel Hilton, David Tuckett. Katie Derham chairs.

We are wary of uncertainty, especially when it comes to money and markets. But might we be better to embrace an uncertain economic future? Is the economy essentially unknowable and precarious, or can we be accurate in our predictions and benefit from a stable environment?

MP and former Chief of Staff to George Osborne, Matthew Hancock, Times editor-at-large Anatole Kaletsky, journalist and broadcaster Isabel Hilton and analyst David Tuckett examine the power of economics.

See out HowTheLightGetsIn on a magical note with our finale star headliner.

Be amongst the first to witness the latest and most exciting reincarnation of the former child star.

Charlotte Church hits Hay with her bold and unique new sound, creating vast musical landscapes, with big drums, big guitars, and a voice that sold over 10 million records.

Leave your preconceptions at the door.