Our Creative Director Paul gives us a whistle-stop round-up to the latest May bookings for this year’s Greenbelt Festival. Some favourites. Some newbies. Some surprises. All adding to the richness and diversity of a bill that will be bursting with goodness come August.
(Pictured at the top of the blog is nature composer, DJ and beatboxer Jason Singh.)
Where to begin?
POETRY AND SPOKEN WORD
Let’s start with Harry Baker’s spoken word guests for 2025. Joining Harry for his in-person Woken Spurred show will be Georgie Jones, Maria Ferguson, and, returning to the festival,
Zia Ahmed. While, adding to his online Worldwide Woken Spurred guests in the No Fly Zone, is American poet Lyndsay Rush. (And any poet who has the social media handle ‘Mary Oliver’s Drunk Cousin’ is sure to be a hit at Greenbelt.)
Meanwhile, firm festival favourite Paul Cookson will be back in the fields to host his inimitable all-age show ‘The Family Twist’ over the weekend. Poet in Residence at the National Football Museum and ‘Slade’s Poet Laureate’, Paul also had a poem featured in a recent Guardian article on saying goodbye to Goodison Park, Everton’s football stadium.
Zia Ahmed
IDEAS
Pagoda
We’re delighted that sought-after writer and theologian Beth Allison Barr will be joining us from the States to compare notes with our very own Chine McDonald on Chine’s latest book, Unmaking Mary: Shattering the Myth of Perfect Motherhood. Author of Becoming the Pastor’s Wife and The Making of Biblical Womanhood, Beth is sure to make an insightful dialogue partner for Chine. We can’t wait to eavesdrop their conversation. And Greenbelt wouldn’t be Greenbelt without the biblical wisdom and contemporary critique of John Bell and so we’re delighted that John will be joining us once more to speak on the main programme.
Hot House
We’ve been really busy booking the programme for the Hot House, our climate- and migration-focused venue, produced in collaboration with the good folks at the Pickwell Foundation. New speaker names for this (bigger this year) venue include: co-leader of the Green Party, Carla Denyer; cycling activist and writer, Laura Laker; burnout recovery expert, Jo Musker-Sherwood; award-winning writer and activist, Jay Griffiths, with her latest book, How Animals Heal Us (which Brian Eno says has changed his thinking about Nature fundamentally); and Tessa Khan, renowned lawyer, campaigner and founder of Uplift, an organisation that supports a just transition away from oil and gas production in the UK.
Carla Denyer
MUSIC
Music-wise, we have now completed the bill for Greenbelt 2025!
Martyn Joseph’s final remote Friday guest for his No Fly Zone Rising show will be Englishman aboard Tom McRae. The wonderful nature composer Jason Singh will be joining us for a show and a led meditation in the Hot House. The Invisible Folk collaboration will be bringing us their Grace Will Lead Me Home project in on the 300th-year anniversary of the birth of the hymn-writer John Newton. While Flo Parker and Scott Brice were both artists who came in through our online submissions process and they will play in our Canopy venue.
And finally, in a barely believable turn of events, we cancelled the Old Time Sailors sea shanty band we had booked for our opening Thursday night (you can read our statement as to why here). But, in an act of (what we hope will prove to be some kind of) poetic justice, we moved fast to reach out and see if we could bring the Catalan band whose arrangements the Old Time Sailors had been plagiarising to join us instead. And we’re thrilled to say that El Pony Pisador will play an after-hours set of us in the Canopy on Saturday night.
And, for our opening, welcome-back-to-Greenbelt Thursday night, we’re thrilled to have secured Bristol’s finest DJ / Dance / MC / hip-hop act of the moment, The Allergies LIVE.
El Pony Pisador
Comedy
Finally, in this little May round-up of new names, we’re delighted to add to our comedy bill for 2025 with Oli Frost, who’s carved out a comedy niche for himself making novelty songs, films and websites about the climate crisis. Oli will perform a stand-up set in the Hot House venue.
Still to come
We’ve still got more to share – speakers, panels, workshops, worship and spirituality. We’re working hard to prepare to be able to include all this good stuff in our online listings (which takes time). But, ahead of having all our ducks in a row, here’s a very basic alphabetical list of events and people who will be part of our worship and spirituality programming…
WORSHIP & SPIRITUALITY
Big Sing with the Wild Goose Resource Group / Breath Meditation with Matt Freer / Catholic Mass with Student Cross / Festival Communion – ‘Hope in our Hands’, including contributions from craftivist in residence Sarah Corbett and Adjoa Andoh / Goth Eucharist / Grace Notes – jazz worship with Jed Bailey and co./ Grove outdoor circle meetings / John Philip Newell exploring Celtic spirituality / Sound Bath with Sekrit / Jesuits – a contemplative session drawing on the ‘spiritual exercises of Ignatius of Loyola / Prayers for Peace – a joint session hosted by many different groups at Greenbelt / Psychedelics and Spirituality – a panel discussion with Ligare / Mindfulness with Briony Martin / Miranda Threlfall Holmes – creative bible studies on Hope in the Making / Northumbria Community – Morning Prayer and late night drumming / Quaker Meeting for Worship / Quiet Communion – our alt. communion service (this year live-streamed from the No Fly Zone / Taize / Tenebrae service hosted by our partners Embrace the Middle East / The Unitarians – with an inclusive, soulful space of quiet reflection, creative sharing and co-created ritual / Wilderthorn, IMMERSE (on the No Fly Zone).