It may well rock for some, but glamorati in the spotlight risk alienating the core following

Writers playing second fiddle to pop stars spells trouble for future editions of the literary fair

With two Poets Laureate and four Booker Prize winners in its line-up, this year’s Hay Festival will be catnip to book-lovers – as long as they realise that their favourite authors will actually be in attendance.

With publicity for this year’s festival focused on the fact that Stormzy and Dua Lipa are appearing – at the head of a plethora of musicians, comedians and assorted celebrities – the people who actually make a living from putting words on paper seem in danger of being shoved out of the limelight.

The Hay Festival has already come some distance since its first event in 1988. In the early years, the focus was on literary heavyweights, such as Salman Rushdie, VS Naipaul, Pat Barker and Kazuo Ishiguro, and the festival was more about the books than the chat – Ted Hughes and William Trevor read from their works but did not take part in Q&AS. There was the odd celeb. Richard E Grant was there in 1996 – the actor will be back this year – as was comedian Eddie Izzard, who performed a set, but their billing reflected their secondary status.

That emphasis has shifted over the past 20 years, with politicians and other famous folk, who may have written a memoir but aren’t exactly writers, being pushed front and centre. Is this a case of the festival format evolving or decaying?

This is not to say that Stormzy and Dua Lipa are unworthy of a place on the Hay stage. Stormzy, as founder of the publishing imprint #Merky Books, will be a better fit than the latest celeb memoirist. Dua Lipa, meanwhile, will be interviewing the novelist Douglas Stuart for her

At Your Service podcast, much praised as a forum for intelligent discussion. The work these two superstars have done in promoting the power of reading to their fans is admirable.

Still, I can’t help recalling that at last year’s Booker Prize ceremony, we were treated to a speech on literature by Dua Lipa, but there was not enough time for the actual winner, the visibly frustrated Shehan Karunatilaka, to finish his victory speech before the live broadcast on Radio 4 had to wind up.

Dua Lipa brought thoughtful content to the gathering as well as stardust, but it was symptomatic of the way in which actual writers are often sidelined.

The argument is that the celebs bring in the punters, which means Hay can afford to remunerate professional authors with something more than the warm wine and sandwiches they get at most literary festivals. And something needs to be

done to lure in a new audience to replace the predominantly elderly clientele of these gatherings.

However, Hay and other festivals need to be careful that they don’t go down the same route as Radio 4 and end up alienating their core audience by chasing an unresponsive younger demographic.

Many people come to Hay-on-wye to rummage in its unrivalled legion of second-hand bookshops and catch a magical glimpse not of the overexposed celebs they see on TV but of their favourite authors – those lesser-spotted, slightly mysterious figures who are rarely allowed a moment in the sun. If this contingent starts to feel that the celeb-author balance is out of whack and chooses to stay home, will the presence of The Proclaimers, Dara Ó Briain et cetera really bring in enough people to compensate?