From Beyoncé to The BFG, The Go-Between to Gogglesprogs – our critics pick 100 highlights of the season

June

Books

1) Hay Festival

There’s still time to catch plenty of events at the famous literary festival in the Welsh borders. Lucy Worsley, Monty Don, Rose Tremain, Jeanette Winterson, Sarah Millican, Simon Schama and Bryn Terfel are just some of the big names on the bill.

Hay-on-Wye, Powys (01497 822 629), until Jun 5

2) Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler

The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist re-imagines Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew in modern-day Baltimore.

Hogarth Shakespeare, out Jun 16

3) Barkskins by Annie Proulx

Proulx returns with a family saga about deforestation across hundreds of years.

Fourth Estate, out Jun 16

Theatre

4) Running Wild

Michael Morpurgo teams up again with the puppeteers who brought War Horse to the stage. His tale is based on the true story of a young girl on holiday in Indonesia who was saved from the 2004 tsunami by the elephant she was riding when the wave struck. The puppets are exquisite, the young lead actors excellent.

Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, London NW1 (0844 826 4242), until Jun 12

5) The Go-Between

A rotating trio of boys play Leo, the innocent witness of Edwardian sexual intrigue in a new musical based on L P Hartley’s 1953 novel. Pathos is turned up to the max in a show which stars Michael Crawford as the older, wiser, sadder Leo.