Euton Daley MBE has nearly 40 years’ experience as a creative practitioner, working with artists, young people and communities. He was Artistic Director and Chief Executive of Pegasus Theatre in Oxford for 23 years, responsible for establishing it as a major youth arts organisation with a growing national and international reputation. For the last 7 years, Euton has been working as a producer, writer and director for his own projects under his Unlock the Chains Collective.
In this episode of the #NWConnect podcast series, Euton speaks to Amelia about performance poetry, music and DJ-ing, alongside thoughts on his experiences as a theatre-maker.
Listen to his Spotify playlist:
Podcast Transcript
Download #NWConnect Euton Daley Podcast Transcript
Kim Glassman 0:00
Hello, and welcome to North Wall Connect
Amelia Thornber 0:02
A new podcast series where we talk to the talented artists featured here at the North
Wall Arts Centre
Kim Glassman 0:07
brought to you by your hosts, Kim
Amelia Thornber 0:08
and Amelia.
Today, I’m talking to Euton Daley about music and how that plays a role in his work,
running an arts building compared to freelancing, and what he’s got coming up,
including being a Propeller Artist here at the North Wall. You can find the playlist he
mentions linked on the same page as this podcast and stick around to hear him read
two of his performance poems.
Hi Euton. Thanks for coming on today.
Euton Daley 0:32
Good morning Amelia. Thanks for having me.
Amelia Thornber 0:34
Can you tell our listeners a little bit about who you are and what it is exactly that you
do?
Euton Daley 0:40
I’m a theatre maker who dabbles in all sorts of things. Initially, I was a performer, but always
wanted to be on the side of being, if you like the, the leadership of something rather than the
follower, so moved into writing and directing. And now producing work as well.
Amelia Thornber 1:02
I know we’d spoken a little bit about music before this conversation, and you wanted
to talk about how music’s played a role in your life. And in your work.
Euton Daley 1:10
I’ve put together a Spotify playlist of some of the songs that has inspired me and continue to
inspire me see what they do for you, enjoy. And, yes, one of the things, I was running the
Pegasus theatre until 2013, for about 23 years. And one of the things I did when I left in
2013 was was go back to two things that I that I, that influenced a lot in my life, and I spent a
lot of time doing. But in the process of running an organisation you move further and further
away from and had actually stopped doing. One of that was was DJing and music played a
quite an important part in my, my early teenage life and college life. And the other was
writing and performance performance poetry. And both of those are actually quite linked in
that the performance poetry, the spoken word, we’re always sort of musically influenced
around rhythms and beats, even though I don’t play any musical myself with the, the way the
voice is used to create rhythms and patterns. So I it was just just a pleasure having that, that
freedom to play and experiment with with those two forms and, and use them in within a
theatre context as well. So music is quite important to me, I when I write, or I’m thinking, I
work with music on all the time. It’s somehow it doesn’t distract me it, it focus me on what I
need to do. And, as lamenting a couple of years back about the lack of music with a
message that I that I grew up with in the late 70s, early 80s music that wasn’t just about
another love affair wasn’t about the bling but was what were what were like music in the sort
of old calypsonian way of sort of way of bringing the world and news to people through
music. And music also that was was very lyric wise, were great and meant something but
also were for me as a DJ were quite danceable. And you enjoy dancing to these music while
listening to what the messages that they were. So that that is that’s, that’s my interest really. I
do want to know, some examples of some of these?
Amelia Thornber 3:46
Yeah, yeah, that would be great. Yeah.
Euton Daley 3:48
For some examples of the track that I have on my, my playlists, particularly, when I’m trying
to get into the zone of writing things, quite political, are things like Steel Pulse. And they’re
quite important to me because they I was around 18 when they broke when they came onto
the scene, and they were a group of reggae band from Handsworth in Birmingham, which is
a stone’s throw 10 minutes walk away from where we used to live in, in Newtown Versailles
area of Birmingham. And that their first couple of tracks on their album Handsworth
Revolution was was just phenomenal in terms of the message it carried, but also the
musicality of it. I still remember to this day the lyric of you know, Klu Klux Klan, you know,
“just walking along, kicking stone, minding my own business I came face to face with, my
foe, disguised in violence from head to toe”. And it was just about racism. You start to think
why can’t all music have a meaning to you? And a way of dealing with you putting into
perspective your life and how the things that you see everyday and the things are happening
around you. And so, you know, I follow them same with as what was, were the same Ub40
with a with another Brummie band. Again, before they, they, I what I call the sellout before
they start doing covers and started doing commercial stuff with their first album, Signing Off,
which is quite apt in terms of the name of the band, UB40, UB40 for those who aren’t, who
are who are not as old as I am, where the old signing on card used to take to unemployment
card. And some of the tracks on there again, it’s just phenomenal like King, Tyler, yeah. And
then I could go keep, keep, keep, waxing, and people like Eddie grant in his, his give me
hope, Joanna, which is about South African apartheid and, and a lot of people and I wont put
some people to shame, who thought that was just a love selling give me hope Joanna was
about is, his fatuation with it with a female actually, rather than Jo, Joanna will be in Joburg,
Johannesburg in South Africa. Quite fascinating. So yeah, music, music and music and me.
Recently I’ve been because the project I’m working on at the moment, I’ve tried to look at the
influence of music within the black culture. And so the last three years I’ve been, I’ve been
indulging myself in gospel, which is something I had in my early years of growing up, and
had moved away from because of the religious context of it. And as I move further and
further from, from that sort of classic form of religion. And that sense of God in the Bible, is,
is this is your saviour. So, come back, come back to gospel just in, in its storytelling form, if,
and, and just how, for me what one of the things I love with gospel how you, you can take
basically a verse and a chorus. And you make a six, nine minute song out of it. And the
different levels of emotions, a lot of them go through and how they take on a journey. And,
and for me, it’s the same as performance poet, the combination of the spoken within the
song, and the spoken, you know, the pastor, preacher spoken bits, with the backing singers
behind echoing on repeater things. And it’s something I’ve played with him in, in my poetry
as well, in collaboration with one of my longtime collaborator, Amantha Edmead, who’s also
a performer and a singer, and being able to use song and her amazing voice with the spoken
word and text.
Amelia Thornber 8:16
Gospel is so so powerful, isn’t it?
Euton Daley 8:19
It is Yeah, yeah. And if you can, if you can put aside the, you know, the talk about God and
Jesus and religion, that some of them are beautiful, poetically written and sung love songs,
the love for oneself, the love of another, the love of the world, the universe.
Amelia Thornber 8:40
So you’ve spoken a bit about the lyrics and how powerful they were and still to this
day, and what they mean to you and how they help focus and help you write. Do you
have any more songs recently that have had a similar effect?
Euton Daley 8:55
Yes, the Childish Gambino You know, this is this is America. Yeah, it took us back to the to
those early days, as well as the wicked video that went with it. Just just, you know, what it’s
about, is actually quite telling. There are a couple of hip hop artists as well, like Dave, who
does it for me as well with some of the lyrics. But hip hop is is a genre I’ve never really got
into because it doesn’t quite do it for me. If I find quite quite some of it, very samey in
musical terms. And again, also same in terms of what it’s saying and something in the
lifestyle and the lifestyle. But when we’re when those few records do come along or few
artists to come along, does it it shows me where it can go to.
Amelia Thornber 9:53
Yeah.
Euton Daley 9:53
I also think a lot of people don’t understand the history of hip hop and where and where it
came from. And so they live if you like they live what the image of it is, rather than the fact
that it came out of that sense of of wanting ownership and wanting to see your own your own
things and to talk about the things around you that’s where hip hop came came out of which
came out of other things. I’d love to work with a with a hip hop artist in terms of how they
create and make music just in terms of looking at the content of how of what they do with it.
Amelia Thornber 10:34
Are you a self taught DJ?
Euton Daley 10:35
Er yes self taught and only came to it by chance. In I was at Rose Bruford college and in
Sidcup Kent which is, I call it white suburbia, having been bought up in a multi culture,
cultural area of Birmingham, and going to drama school in Sidcup, which is I couldn’t
understand the first couple of weeks there why every time you’re walking on the high street,
people were looking at you and you thought have I got my pants down my ankle or
something. And it wasn’t the only time I stepped foot into the drama school that you realise
why it was because it was only a handful of us, six of us in the whole college at that time.
And so you’re surrounded by this this thing that you’re not used to, because there used to be
in a multicultural society community where everybody’s different basically, you know, from
your African Caribbean from your Asian Indian Pakistani. You’re there lots of lots of different
races. And yes, sometimes this conflicts and sometimes you disagree but but basically
people live together and you’re not strange because of a different colour to be an
environment where you’re, you’re strange because of the colour of your skin. And also, I was
also strange at drama school because I went I didn’t used to speak like this. I went to drama
school speaking, a weird combination of patois, which is Jamaican, just because that’s
where I came from, was born born and came from with Brummie, which they just people
used to find it an amusing way to have a good laugh. They wanted me to speak all the time,
so they could just hear the accent and this weird mixture of patois and Brum. So, I got
friendly with a guy from Nigeria called Kofi who was attending the Teacher Training College
at Avery Hill, which about a couple of miles up the road from Rose Bruford and went along
they had because being at drama School you see you didn’t have you didn’t have them
social evenings. You know, like they did up there they they had Friday discos where’s our
social evenings at drama school you all went off to London to the theatre, didn’t you. So I got
friendly with him went to one of his Friday night jaunt in their college. And went, went
regularly and then one, one Friday, he was asked if – the DJ wasn’t well one of their regular
DJs wasn’t well – whether he knew somebody who could who could fit in a short notice. And
he said “No, I don’t”. And I said “I’d give it a go”. Because I I enjoyed music, listen to music.
And so I just put my hand at it. Trying that first time. I knew what I knew songs, I knew music
and I knew what to do. And that day didn’t have digital things that was all records which was
great. I still record collection which even though, you know, lots of Spotify says stuff and I’ve
got music from virtual DJs. Record and handling the reocrds is something quite precious and
something quite therapeutic with it that you don’t get digitally. So I got a buzz from it from
doing it and then then went off for the rest of that week practising in my my my my one
bedroom-sit with my record player, playing music and it wasn’t till a few weeks later that he
asked me if I’d like to like to do a slot with and I said I’d love to so then started doing it there.
Amelia Thornber 14:38
That’s wicked. So tell us a bit more about your journey then. So you grew up in
Birmingham, went to Rose Bruford. And then how did you end end up here in Oxford?
Euton Daley 14:47
How did I end up here in Oxford? I end up in Oxford and ended up here in Oxford in 1990.
There’s a job, I was at the Royal Court young people’s theatre at the time as a youth and
community director, and I saw a job advertised to, for a co-director at the Pegasus theatre.
And I was enjoying my time was loving my time at the Royal Court, and doing lots of stuff
within, because we’re based at Portobello Road in West London, home of Notting Hill
carnival. So that was something I looked forward to every year. But the thought of running a
venue really appealed to me. And I didn’t think I’d ever get that opportunity in London. So
decided I would apply for the job was successful. And I thought also that I would only be
here for 5, 6, 7 years, I thought that that would, that would be it. But then then got hooked on
the work and got hooked on on running a venue
Amelia Thornber 15:53
Tell us a bit about running a building versus freelancing.
Euton Daley 15:56
When when I left Pegasus, I was really looking forward to being building free. Obviously,
quite a small team, we just redevelop the Pegasus into it has been a major capital
redevelopment, my whole time in the last two years before I left was basically managing
resources to make sure that building kept going. And I was moving further away further and
further away from the delivery coalface of being an artist, which is where I started out and
spent a lot of time fundraising basically. And so when I left, I was enjoying that moment of
Yeah, building free, do what I want, when I want and but within two years, I was yearning
and desperate to have a building, not necessarily to run. But what a building does, it gives
you a sense of identity. And as a freelancer, you spend a lot of your time particularly when,
when you’re, you’re, you’re not based necessarily one company, like do a lot of stuff with
other people as well, you spend a lot of your time looking for space, looking for availability of
space, having to move from space to space, begging for space, waiting for venues to get
back to you, on your very tight schedule, trying to make a very tight budget, you’ve got that
you’ve probably could contribute to that space costs work within what venues were wanting,
you know, you had to be out by certain times, when really, you’d want to spend another two
hours in that space, you want to be able to leave your stuff there for the work in the following
day and you can’t, you gotta move somewhere else. So it was you’re just juggling all the time
with space space needs. And it’s, and here in Oxford, it’s just a premium. And it would be
great, I’d love it if one of my wish lists in the coming years would would be that if venues
could take on companies who who aren’t funded companies as as resident companies within
their space and and allocate them, which is one of the things we used to do at Pegasus we
support that organisation, by actually giving them space, not in any ad hoc way, but actually
quite a fabric of the building. So while you’re programming your year and your programme
and your your, your your schedule, you’re actually programming their needs as much as as
yours. And you negotiate that. So they felt that they had a space and they had a home and a
belonging. And that’s what you miss really it’s not that you’re homeless in the same way. But
you don’t you don’t feel you belong without a building behind you. Without that support
behind you. So, so I’ve missed not having a building. as a freelancer you, you you’re
juggling, it’s great having the freedom to say no to things and to prioritise and to work with
lots of different companies. But also as a freelancer, you tend to be working with lots of
companies and organisations are in similar positions with you struggling to make, you know
the pennies work, struggling to find space, struggling to get their work programmed. So you
end up as a freelancer doing the things you’re doing for yourself also for other people. And
so in terms of my skill and experience, I’ve also found I’ve been helping lots of other
organisations while just raise the funds just keep going. So although I don’t want to be a
fundraiser and never and I never put that on my CV. I actually do spend time generating or
raising funding not only for myself, but other people.
Amelia Thornber 19:38
How has the landscape of the arts changed since you started working?
Euton Daley 19:43
It’s got more bureaucratic, bureaucratic and whilst there is more, potentially more funding
sources out there and potential to generate funds, it’s also is was also harder. You find a lot
of times that you’re trying to match up funders needs and priorities with what you want to do.
I remember in in some of the good old days where you apply for funding, because you had a
passion for this project, and the funder says, yep, I like that, like a passion like that project,
we’re gonna do it. And now you’re having to do so much reporting in terms of impact and
who it’s going to reach and what it’s going to do and how you’re going to raise the match
funding. And that’s a big difference as well match funding for things now, which wasn’t there
before, in the same way. And actually, a lot of that now is actually hard cash match funding,
rather than support in kind you know people who give you free space, for example, which is
still important in the premium. But then, if you had that in the past that that was sufficient to,
to to get other funding, but now you need cash on top of it. One of the big differences I’ve
noticed is that there is perhaps less experiment with forms and with ideas for project than
they used to be. Which is a bit odd to say, consider we’ve got more and more things around
us, such as digital. So in that sense you know it’s a massive, big difference to then. But
because you didn’t have those technology, when I was was around and started the skill of
what you could do with nothing was you weren’t there’s much more emphasis placed on that.
So you know, with a cardboard box and I don’t know a wooden broomstick, what creatively
could you generate, to create a world and an atmosphere in a place that you, you know,
people now will say well we will build that will make that will add that to it, you know, we’ll do
well have that video projection there, we’ll do that bit of light in there. So there’s much more,
there’s much more resources piled into it, which sometimes I think take away from, from
what’s happening on stage in the play. And I’ve noticed that I’ve been going back to
freelance work, I’ve gone back to some of those earlier things knowing that, yes, I won’t have
a van to carry, cause I can’t afford a van. And I don’t own one, I can’t afford one to carry the,
you know, this massive big set around. So how can I make work and make a set that’s
effective, that will fit in the back of my car? And therefore, what’s the relationship between
those few objects on stage and the performer, has much more of an importance in a sense,
then if you have to throw resources at it, and throw your large sets and your big costume
budgets on to it, and also not tour with any lighting as well, and often touring to places where
you know, you’ve got an hour to get in. So you you can’t spend four hours to re rig or lighting
setup means you think very differently about about those things. And, and those those
production values are important. I’m not knocking them for one moment. But when you don’t
have them at the you, you think and work very differently in a much more creative way.
Which is where you were where I was, when I when I first started. There are more
companies as well and more freelance artists. So the seems to be much, much more this
much more of an ecology and a culture, which at the same time also makes it sometimes
harder. Because you see a lot of a lot more duplication of things, and say in this small City of
Oxford volume of not only venues but also companies, and theatre companies is
phenomenal for a small city. And then add on top of that freelance, the freelancers here as
well.
Amelia Thornber 23:55
It’s exciting, though.
Euton Daley 23:56
It’s exciting.
Amelia Thornber 23:57
I think it’s nice that there’s a lot going on in Oxford because the arts can often be very
London centric. And it’s nice that we’re not necessarily losing everyone to London,
and there’s still a buzz in the city and a lot of creative, creative things happening…
Euton Daley 24:11
I found has been because I’ve done a bit of doing still doing some work for Dancin Oxford
and Oxford Dance Forum based here in the city. And one of things I’ve seen over the years
is that the numbers of independent dancers who’ve moved into the city to get away from big
cities like London for a different quality and way of life. But some how it’s harder for
performers there’s less performers doing that because you think a lot of performers
supplement their income through, you know, other things like waiting and stuff. So, being in
the city and being being ready to ready for those that call for audition. You tend not to have
that within performers, but within the dance world that’s happened quite a lot. Lots of
migration here. And which has really benefited the city in dance dance has exploded over
the last 10-15 years here in Oxford.
Amelia Thornber 25:12
Yeah, massively. Could you tell us about your relationship with the North Wall?
Euton Daley 25:16
My relationship with the North Wall before 2019 was just as a punter as an audience
member. And then I was with Kuumba Nia Arts, Amantha Edmead’s company, who were
selected as the first North Wall Propeller artist with support for the show that we were doing
went on to Edinburgh call Sold. So the North Wall, in terms of that support, offered us
basically residency to produce and make the second stage of that work, and supported
going up to the Edinburgh Festival, where it was quite a success and won Music Theatre
Award for Best Ensemble piece. So until then, as a punter from that moment, it became the
North Wall became that question we asked about venue early became more than just a
place where you, you as a performer or an artist went to see shows, or occasionally
rehearsed, to feel a sense of that there was an organisation with a venue that wanted you
and you felt a sense of home, and a sense of belonging, and subsequently since the North
Wall have now selected me as individual artist, to be their Propeller artist for 2021, along
with a couple of other artists. And again, just that relationship with the venue’s shifted to feel
that you’re part, although independent from them, you’re part of them, and their
planning and their thinking. So what I want to do within that year, is just the feel that as much
as they’re supporting me, I feel that I can contribute back to the North Wall and, and support
all the initiatives and things that they’re doing, as well.
Amelia Thornber 27:00
How has this past year changed your practice? Has it?
Euton Daley 27:04
Yes, yes, it has. It’s made me think. We we’re about to go out with Sold on a national and
international tour that was all put on hold in 2020. So we’ve looked at what we can do within
within, you know, the remit of digital, and I’ve just had time to redevelop the resource pack to
go with the show, it’s made us also film the show, for digital release, I still find it such a hard
concept. Particularly when you rely when you’ve done it without an audience you’ve
recorded without an audience. And you’re not getting, as a performer not getting any
interaction back from anybody, but still wanted to make the show a sort of theatrical event
rather than a film. I’m not sure it’s a medium I want to pursue going further down the line
with.
Amelia Thornber 28:00
Do you think that’s the difference then? So what makes it more theatrical is having
that audience and being them being able to respond.
Euton Daley 28:06
Yes, and the responses doesn’t have to be outwardly out there. But it’s just knowing that
there’s an energy and a vibe that you feel when you connect to an audience. And even if the
show has no comedy in it, no laughter moment no, no sense of where we’ll join this together,
you know, that they’re, they’re hanging on to every word and into into every mood, and you
pick up their energies and make pick up yours. But then also, in terms of what we like to do,
the shows that we make, as we have an interaction with the audience afterwards, whether
that’s straight into a q&a, or socially in the public, forer or bar afterwards. And I desperately
miss that. And even though we we’ve had q&a in the digital sense, after the show, it misses
a same sort of buzz or same sort of connection, although usefully, it still gives you a
connection to to your audience. I must say though that the one thing that digital has done is
it has made because when when I did my play reading of the show, I’m working on moment
at the North Wall was was back in March to find there’s somebody in the audience from
South Africa, watching and commenting back and talking to you about their experience and
what you’re experiencing in Britain was phenomenal. And, and in a sense that’s that’s a
great thing about the digital sphere. And I’d love that to happen to have that international
connection with your work without having to travel 1000s of miles. But for me making the
work and doing the work, I’m not it’s not for me. So part of that rethinking for me, so I’ve just
looked at what it is I want to do with my work further. Having and having spent quite a lot of
2020 supporting the Black Lives Matter movement and Rhodes Must Fall campaign here in
Oxford. I’ve decided I want to want to do my work is just focus more on the activism end of it,
and how I can use art to help those activist campaigns that are happening, and also with
Oxford, building up an anti racist Alliance and within a cultural sector, looking at how we can
actually change the institutions systemic way in which racism is being perpetuated in the
culture sector, here in Oxford, and spending energy and time on that as well. And it’s sort of
just decided that what to focus on for the next at least next couple of years, is on that part of
my, my being, which is, which I’ve very rarely have done as an artist, which is about being
being black and living in, in in Oxford and living in Britain. Yeah, because most of the time
as, as an artist you working, you don’t have that luxury, most of your work doesn’t do that
does reflect that, because of who’s employing you and the organisation’s you working for. So
it’s great having having that particular focus, and working with other other artists of similar ilk.
And what and what was similar things as well, it’s been quite liberating. And we worry about
where we, how and when we pay the bills a bit later down the line. (Laughs)
Amelia Thornber 31:49
(Laughs) So now things are opening back up again, have you got any plans to return
to the rehearsal room or get in a room with people anytime soon?
Euton Daley 31:51
Yeah, we’ve started working on our next show, which will have a an R&D in June – 18th & 19th of
June, it’s called Still Breathing, which is a play reading in with it at the North Wall in March.
And it’s great being in a space with performers, musicians and dancers to bring that piece to
life. It’s I call it a 30 minute performance poetry rant. Based on conversations heard,
overheard and had with lots of people around Black Lives Matters and Rhodes Must Fall as I
was saying earlier the support that I was doing last year. And of that feeling of, we’ve been
here before, we’re tired we’re fatigued with it all. When is anything going to change, is
anything going to fundamentally really change. And it’s just based on that put into a theatre
form. And dealing with the fact that on top of the pandemic, the black community, continually
burying their, their dead and burying their children before their times due. And it’s just looking
at at that through theatre, music and dance, which is how I like to work fusing fusing, all of
those together to try and create a new trying to create a theatrical form that uses
performance poetry, dance, music, song.
Amelia Thornber 33:31
So have you got anything that you’re looking forward to in the next year? Or anything
coming up? What are you looking forward to?
Euton Daley 33:38
Apart from world peace and a more equal just society?
Amelia Thornber 33:42
and are optimistic for?
Euton Daley 33:44
Yes, yes, yes, yeah. Because if you don’t have that, if you don’t have that hope, and that
belief that it will happen, then it just Yeah, I don’t know why I’d get get up out of bed in the
morning. And why I’d do the things I do, and slug away at the things I do. So I’ve got to have
that hope and that belief that it will be achievable. And, and even if not, when within your
lifetime, totally, it paves the way for, you know, the next generation. And, and, and what I
really loved being involved in the summer with things here in Oxford with was the the energy
of the young people and the younger generation. And it’s it was it’s their passion and belief
that it will change this time. And I think that’s what’s dragged us oldies along, to think
differently into and to also get caught up in it. And even just send my, my eldest son as well,
you know, really being activated and motivated and actually out there doing things politically.
Yeah, there’s hope, there’s hope. Looking forward to writing my third collection of
performance poetry book, it’s still behind my own deadlines, imposed deadlines, and partly
because of the pandemic in that I like to write in the sun. So I tend to go away, when when
I’ve got lots of the ideas and stuff and things done, I tend to go away for a week, couple of
weeks to turn those scribbles and those odd words and things that doesn’t quite flow into
reality by sitting on a beach somewhere. (Laughs) And not being
Amelia Thornber 35:45
Where do you go?
Euton Daley 35:47
Anywhere near. So be just going, just going across to Spain, it’s just being in the sun and
being in this in the space, and also been being on your own. You know, when you’re living
with a family, well not living with a family, you have a family, not just living with them, I have a
family. And suddenly you don’t have to think about anybody else. So I don’t have to think
about, oh, it’s got to have social time with mealtimes and do this, you go to bed. So you
know, some some some days you you’re writing, five, six in the morning on a balcony, lovely
and warm, watching the sun set rise. And it’s beautiful you don’t have to think about anything
as you keep working without having to think about anybody else’s needs. So not being able
to do that. And I suppose, I don’t have that self discipline to lock myself in my room in the
same way.
Amelia Thornber 36:41
It’s not the same
Euton Daley 36:46
Not the same, to right. So I’m looking forward to that whenever that might happen, which
won’t be this year. But hopefully next year that can happen. So I can finalise that third
volume. I am looking forward to theatres reopening again, not just in terms of putting my own
work on but just being an audience member. Yes, sitting on your sofa, watching another
show on your Telly screen doesn’t do for me. As we’re talking earlier. And I just want to be in
the space with people. Even if I don’t know 99.5% of them who are sitting around me.
There’s something quite liberating and magical about it.
Amelia Thornber 37:33
Definitely.
Euton Daley 37:35
Can I read you performance poetry? Can I read you two?
Amelia Thornber 37:36
Yes, perfect.
Euton Daley 37:37
So this one is called Knowing Your Enemies. And yeah, I’ll just “God, you are my witness. I
can’t run anymore. And God be my witnesses nowhere else to hide. In desperation. I plead
to the help us, deliverance is all we ask. And God the hundreds of years have proved our
existence. So don’t ask me to beg. Is there no place in heaven for us? Are you too part of the
conspiracy? building the walls brick by brick erecting the fence strand by strand? Answer
me. God, You to have witnessed and God you to have remained silent.
Silent.
silent.”
Okay. So, this one also is playing on the word silence. And it’s from. It’s that it’s a leading
poem, the title poem of the my second collection of books. “Ending the Silence”. I’ve read the
poem. “The wind blows the barren soil across the barren landscape. Winter came early as
usual summer, hardly at all. No one smiled. No laughter no one groaned or moaned the faint
muffled sound of children crying of hunger, dying of hunger of thirst is lost in the cold in the
wind. Who would care anyway? If the muffled could be heard if the gag was removed? Who
would care any way if the muffled was removed if the gag was removed? We are suffering in
silence, living on the edge and wasting away. Another generation left to rot another
generation left to rot in this conspiracy. This conspiracy of silence
silence
silence
silence.”
Amelia Thornber 40:03
Thank you so much for chatting today.
Euton Daley 40:05
My pleasure, Amelia. Thank you.
Amelia Thornber 40:07
You’re not gonna give me any gems if I stopped recording now are you? (Laughs) I’m
really scared to click stop in case come out with something else.
Euton Daley 40:10
(Laughs)
Amelia Thornber
That was brilliant thank you so so much
