Mischief, merriment and inclusive movement.

Daryl Beeton is a kind of acrobatic superhero. He flies on top of sway poles which includes 25 meters across London's Olympic Stadium. H’s trekked 228 miles across Nicaragua, filmed by the BBC, requiring armed soldiers due to the dangers of bandits and kidnappers. He also performs with the trapeze and could probably hang upside down longer than Batman and he's the creator of joyful and highly imaginative, inclusive theatre. Daryl Beeton creates accessible theater for everyone. He's a performer with a disability and he shows the joy of creating alternative and imaginative ways of performing. If you want to see how many ways a wheelchair can spin, striking, acrobatic shapes, and unexpected choreographies, he's your man. We talk about social disability, taking risks as part of exploring friendship and self-development, owning your identity and not being mis-represented, pushing boundaries and expectations, with plenty of mischief, merriment and fun.

Assistant Audio Editor - Enric Thier

Series Music - Courtesy of Barry J. Gibb

Closed Captions are added to all interviews in this series. Read only, text versions of every interview can also be found here: https://canartsaveus.com/

Discover Daryl Beeton: https://www.darylandco.com/

 

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to this podcastseries asking the question Can

(00:03):
art save us? I'm starting thefirst national and international
conversation about courage andcuriosity. What do these
qualities really mean? And whydoes it make a big difference to
our mental, societal anddemocratic health? I talk to
award winning and diverseartists across the arts to
explore these qualities in theirlives and work, both to inspire

(00:24):
and for us all to learn. I'mexploring why we need these
qualities to help change theglobal epidemic of mental
illness, loneliness,polarization of our communities,
and even global conflict. Ifthe arts cultivate courage and
curiosity. I'm asking thequestion Can Art Save Us?

(00:46):
I think of my guest today as akind of acrobatic superhero. He
flies on top of sway poles,including 25 meters across
London's Olympic Stadium. He'strekked 228 miles across
Nicaragua, filmed by the BBC andrequiring armed soldiers due to
the dangers of bandits andkidnappers. He's a trapeze

(01:08):
artist who could probably hangupside down longer than Batman.
And he's the creator of joyfuland highly imaginative,
inclusive theater. DarylBeeton creates accessible
theater for everyone. He's aperformer with a disability. And
he shows the joy of creatingalternative and imaginative ways
of performing. If you want tosee how many ways a wheelchair

(01:29):
can spin, striking, acrobaticshapes, and unexpected
choreographies. He's your man.
Darryl, hello, and welcome.Hello.
Thank you for that intro. I hopeyou enjoyed it. I was so
excited doing my research

(01:51):
I'm convinced You're asuperhero.
Daryl, you've describedcreating accessible theater,
through co-creation, mischeif andmerriment, which are great
ingredients. And I wondered,have you always been
mischievous? Oh, gosh, I supposeI have in a way. I mean, I,

(02:16):
I was brought up in a very
working class, traditionalmainstream, non disabled family
slash world. And I realized thatsort of quite a young age that
the usual rules didn't apply tome because of my being disabled,
and in and out of hospital andpeople's perceptions. So yeah, I

(02:40):
think quite young, I realized,well, I might as well play with
that and have fun with it andjust see how much I can get away
with.
You've talked about having a lotof fun with challenging
perceptions, and I'll quote you,"I tease the audience, I pose the
idea of the weak disabled personwho can't do anything, lull them

(03:01):
into a false sense of security,then boom, it all goes manic."
And I really enjoyed that. Andhow how you work with fun in
order to break down negativestereotypes? Is it fun that
breaks down the barriers? Well,I think there's many different
approaches to breaking downbarriers. And I think it comes

(03:23):
from a
sort of a sort of multiple 360approach. So for me, I use the
tool of fun, surprise,playfulness, as a way to
break down to bring the guarddown with people so then we can
then sort of have a bit more ofa sort of deeper sort of

(03:45):
conversation, whether that's aphysical conversation or through
a conversation through art.
And so yeah, and I alwaysthink that, you know, in order
to get for me, in order to getto the politics of it, the door
for me to open that for otherpeople is through fun and
playfulness. And so that's,that's yeah, that's always been

(04:06):
my approach when making work orhaving conversations actually.
And it strikes me that fun is aform of openness. And that's how
I relate it to healthycuriosity, you know, the the
openness of exploring andplaying imaginative play.

(04:27):
I wondered if, in yourexperience, you find that
whether it's working withdisabled or non disabled people,
it's having that curiosity thatenables people to work together
in a way that's much moretransformative or original.
Yeah, well, I mean, to start offwith we have a we have a saying

(04:50):
that we, we take fun seriously,so we don't see it as something
frivolous or somethingthrowaway. In fact, it's in
order to get to the seriousness
We use fun as a tool. And
as well as that is, everythingthat I do is really around

(05:10):
collaboration and conversation.And,
and through that, it really doesenable us to, to ask some tricky
questions and to sort of try andunderstand that everybody in the
space, whether whatever that bephysical or not, is coming from
a different life experience. Andthat actually, by allowing that

(05:35):
way, by allowing fun, and takingfun seriously to open up those
conversations, we can then startto understand each other in a,
in a richer and more dynamic waythat helps feed ourselves and
other people. I wondered, I wascurious, in fact, where your,
your own sense of fun came fromas a child, because I read that

(05:58):
you described yourself as beingisolated in mainstream
education, you know, lack ofrole models. So I'm curious
where your own sense of fun andinspiration has come from?
It's a really interestingquestion. I, when I was younger,
I was in mainstream education amainstream school. And then

(06:23):
against the sort of will of myparents, I was taken out of
mainstream and put into aspecialist school. And I was in
that specialist school for about
a couple of years before thespecialist school threw me out
because they said I wasn'tdisabled enough. And so I lived
in this bit of a limbo for alittle while.
But the thing that I find reallyinteresting is that in this in

(06:46):
the specialist school, theyweren't constrained by and this
was back in the sort of, youknow, early 80s, they weren't
constrained by the sort of theway that mainstream school
teaches young people. So theapproach to teaching was much
more creative. We were it wasmuch more tactile, it was much
more multisensory, it was muchmore, well actually just use the

(07:09):
arts as a tool for education.And so even though, even though
that sort of period of my life was an isolating one, because
all of the kids on my councilestate went to the same school,
and I had to get on a bus and go45 minutes out of the city to
the specialist school, so I wasalways sort of isolated. But I
do think that actually broughthas been the route of me sort of

(07:34):
being making theater and workingin the arts today. And it's
something that they probablydidn't expect when they put me
in that specialist school when Iwas like, six. But that sort of
approach to sort of learning andeducation, using creative arts
as a tool, I think has reallyinfluenced me and my work ever
since. It sounds like it was agift on one hand, as you

(07:56):
described, but also verydisruptive, you know, to
suddenly be told you're notdisabled enough, which is
interesting in itself. But tothen go to mainstream education,
where the arts is actuallydeprived, how did you manage
such a harsh transition?I don't really remember that

(08:18):
much of it. But I do remember,when I
got into mainstream school as anexample, in junior school,
they used to go swimming everyFriday or something, I can't
remember the day of the week,but you had to walk to the
swimming baths, which was abouta 20 minute walk away. So I

(08:38):
never went swimming with therest of my class. And
what that meant was why everyonewas swimming, they would sort
of, you know, maybe do some art,or, or do some, something that
was like, what they considered asoft subject.
And so I think that was alwaysmy hook. And then, and then,

(08:59):
when I got into secondaryschool, you know, it's, I ended
up sort of discovering the dramadepartment. And then that sort
of became my
became my tribe in a way. And soeven though
I was doing all of thosesubjects, as my peers, I was

(09:19):
always drawn to the sort of themore creative arts sections of
it, because that's where I getbecause that's where I sort of
thrived. And I think one of thedifficulties was actually being
in specialist school for acouple of years meant that sort
of, you know,
my English and my maths andthings like that
weren't up to the same level asmy peers in mainstream school.

(09:44):
So I was always put in what wasthen called in those days, the
remedial classes for catch upand things like that. So I had a
very sort of
interesting and sort of
love hate with school because Iloved it, but it's
same time I didn't. But I reallyloved it because I just had, I
was very lucky, I had reallygood sort of drama and art

(10:07):
teachers that just did, that justsaw beyond me being a disabled
child in a fully mainstreamschool and just sort of
looked at what was the thingsthat was preventing me from
taking part and then justreduced. And it's interesting
what you're describing, becausethere's such heavy labeling
going on, I remember that, in myown experience, you know, the,

(10:30):
the below average six year old,because she was too busy
imagining, you know, lived inher head kind of thing, and
school reports that wouldliterally say,
don't expect Paula to come tomuch. And I was six! And you're
just
and you're describing thoseheavy labels, which of course

(10:54):
risks what we know is selffulfilling prophecy, you know,
where people can literallyfulfill a negative label. And
your description of how the artswill use there's a real
prejudice in it in terms of thearts will do. It's not as
serious as math, but the artswill do. We'll just give, we're

(11:14):
just give Daryl some colouring in, it becomes quite prejudiced,
even though we know what a giftand how highly skilled it is.
And it's interesting that youmentioned the drama department
at your school, because I readthat by the age of 14, you were
already in small televisionroles. I was indeed. So I grew

(11:39):
up in Nottingham. And there usedto be
a thing there called Central TVdrama workshop. And it was
basically a
drama workshop that was ran bythe local TV company as a way to
generate ideas for their TVshows. And it had been going
many years before I joined. Andactually the guy who used to run

(12:02):
it even came and saw me in aschool play and then approached
me and said, oh, you shouldauditioned to be part of our
group. And
what that became was as well asgenerating ideas for TV shows,
it became a sort of, yeah, aprofessional training ground for
young performers, young actors.And then it also became a bit of
a casting pool. So yeah, when Iwas like, 14, I had small parts

(12:26):
in kids TV shows and things likethat. But interestingly, I did a
short film,
when I was about 15. Andafterwards, when it was made and
put out there, I didn't realizebut other people sort of said to
me afterwards, have you noticedwhat they've done? And I was

(12:47):
like, no, what because I, I usea wheelchair, but I can walk a
small amount.
And what they've done is thatthey've edited it. So every time
I got up to stand up and walk,that bit was cut out, and then
it would come back to me when Iwas sat down or just a headshot.
So actually, if you didn't knowme the way that they'd edited

(13:08):
the film, you wouldn't realizethat I was a disabled person.
And when I was 15, I wasn't evenaware of this, you know, I say
that I didn't come out asdisabled until I was like 21.
Because I had no realunderstanding of what it meant
to be disabled. And also all ofthe language and all of the
terminology was so negative thatI didn't feel comfortable with

(13:28):
it.
So yeah, so even without beingaware that part of my identity
had been edited out of thisshort film. That's so shocking.
So despite shocking treatment ofyour performances at that young
age, I was interested in whetherit changed any of your

(13:49):
relationships, maybe with yourpeers or other school kids, you
know, when you've been in quitean isolated position, but then
you're suddenly perceived as theinteresting kid who's on who's
on the telly. I wondered if thathad any impact? Well, I suppose,
by that point, so by time, I wassort of like, 15, 16, I'd sort of,
as I'd say, I'd found my owntribe. And, and, yeah, so you

(14:11):
know, not massively because Isort of realized by that point,
that
who were the people that yeah, Isuppose, who were the people
that, that I wanted to spend mytime with? And, and, and who got
me and I got them and, you know,they're very sort of

(14:31):
stereotypical sort of, you know,
we, you know, I,
we were a small group of sortof, you know, misfits or
outsiders or those that wereconsidered others are considered
other I should say, so, theywere the people that I sort of,
spent my time with and, and madeand made our own shows with, and

(14:54):
things like that. So in a waywe'd sort of, because we were
all isolated
in some shape or form, wecreated our own bubble and
didn't really sort of notice theoutside world ourselves. It's
really interesting 'other' comesup far too often when you talk
to artists in terms of beingmade an outsider in in many

(15:16):
ways, because of the artisticlife that you're choosing to
lead. But what you were justsaying reminded me of the work
you did with an artist calledTim Mars in Reframing the Myth.
It was at the Guardiansexhibition space. And I'll quote

(15:37):
him first. And this is what drewmy eye ti it, and it relates to
the idea of being othered. Andhe said, "I was impressed by
Daryl's skills and performancework showing his agility,
elegance and strength. The swaypole as he flew through the air
gave him immense power. I basethe work on the circus of old

(15:58):
American carny and freakshow posters, I wanted to turn
this message on its head, makingit a more positive 21st century
message. Daryl creates abeauty in what he does. And in
the image, he states live yourlife with joy, and wonder." And I

(16:19):
wondered, Daryl, if perhapsfor the listeners, you might
want to reflect and describewhat that what that image was
and your own response to thatinterpretation? Yeah, sure. So
that came through a greattheatre company. And I know it's
CIA, but I forget what it standsfor now, illustration agency, I

(16:40):
can't remember what the C standsfor. And so they did a
collaboration, and put
artists, visual artists, graphicartists, with disabled
performers, and or disabledartists. And so that process was
an interesting one. So me andTim just, we never physically

(17:00):
met, but we spoke a lot on thephone. And we had many
conversations. And it wasreally, around sort of, well,
first of all, just addressingthe lack of
disabled imagery within sort ofvisual arts and graphic arts and
stuff like that. And, yeah, sowe had, we had several

(17:21):
conversations, and it wasinteresting, because I didn't
know what he was going to takeaway from those conversations
and in corporate, and I wouldjust send him loads of images of
stuff like that. And so he yeah,he really took that sort of idea
of, again, it really ties intothis idea of sort of play and
turning things on its head. And,you know, I always say, as a

(17:44):
disabled person walking onstage, I'm always going to
challenge somebody's perceptionbefore I do anything. So it was
really just sort of playing withthat. And
yeah, so he puts gotta put a tryremember what the image is. Now,
although I do have the posterout in my hallway, I've still
got on my wall.
And, yeah, really played withthis idea of, of

(18:08):
juxtapositioning, that old sortof circus freak show with a sort
of modern twist. And, and it wasreally interesting, that quote,
that you just read out, was,that is actually a lyric from an
REM song, because he asked mewhat my favorite song was. And
that was one of them. So he tookit from that. And
yeah, so it's a sort of acollage of different images of,

(18:32):
of myself that he'd he'd workedthrough, to sort of show this
flow and physicality to who Iam. Which, if you just saw me in
the street, you wouldn't assumethat I would have that sort of
flow. And it's just on thatnote, sorry, it's a bit random.
I, it's interesting. I, as Isay, I use a wheelchair, but

(18:58):
previous and I also use crutchesto get around and it's
interesting. I think, as asociety, we've got used to
seeing the wheelchair user, so Idon't get stared at that much
when I'm in my chair. But whenI'm on my crutches, because my
physicality is so different, Iget a lot more stares, because
people really like interested inin the way that sort of my body

(19:18):
physically moves through aspace, which is so different.
But when I'm in my chair, no onebats an eyelid these days. Oh,
that's interesting, isn't it? Sothere's there's still different
responses in terms of howsomeone is mobile? Yes. Most of
my work is you know, quite alot, not most of it quite a lot
of my work previous work likeMoments and Motion. And the new

(19:41):
show that we're working on withMimbre Look, Mum No Hands, is
based in this idea ofperceptions of what an ability
aides are and what they do. Sothis is a misconception that
mobility aids are restricting.But actually the whole point of
a mobility aid is toenable rather than to
restrict. So we often playaround with that as a concept in

(20:03):
the current theme within my workthat plays around with that
concept. So you just mentionedmoments in motion. And that was
in 2005. And as far as Iunderstand, it was the first
time you integrated your aerialskills within theater
performance. And it struck mebecause you also included
flashbacks to childhoodexperiences, waiting on cold

(20:26):
hospital trolleys for operationsand spending nights on the wards
alone. And that made me wonderhow you managed feeling perhaps
vulnerable or fearful, how younegotiated your sense of
courage. But I was alsointerested in that choice of

(20:46):
having that aerial contrast, itwas like an out of body
experience, where you could thenlook down on yourself on on that
trolley. And it raised thecontrast of mobility and
immobility. So I just wonderedwhat your thoughts were.
Yeah, so that piece was probablymy first and most
autobiographical piece that I've

(21:09):
made. And it was one of those
pieces where I really did drawupon.
Yeah, what it meant to begrowing up disabled in a world
designed for everybody, butyourself. And up until I was
about 15, I was in and out ofhospital a couple of times a

(21:30):
year for different operationsand things like that.
And
there were I had my, my parentswere very,
what's the word I want to sayopen, but whenever we were in
the we're in with a doctor, theywould the doctor would always at

(21:50):
some point and say, so if Darylwants to go outside, we can then
just have a chat. And my mum wasalways be like, No, it's his
body, he can stay in. And, youknow, have an opinion. And so I
did listen to some quitehorrific things, you know, about
what the operation would evolveand all of that type stuff. And
I did go through a phase where,

(22:13):
before the night before I gointo hospital, I would, you
know, be rather upset. And wesort of asking my mom, whether I
would come out of hospital, orwould I die.
And then when you think aboutthat, as a sort of 10, 11, 12 year
old, that's, that's quite sortof intense. And it was those

(22:33):
feelings that I really wanted tosort of play around with in
moments in emotion. And when Iwas making the show, because
exactly as you were saying,there was it was trying to draw
the parallels between being adisabled gay man going out and
trying to find someone
trying to find someonebasically. And those feelings as

(22:55):
well. Were quite similar tothose feelings I was having as a
child, in terms of what's goingto happen. Nobody wants me I'm
very different from everybodyelse. And that was the sort of
narrative of the piece and whenwe were making it, somebody
said, Oh, it's, it's like thosemoments you were you're
describing in the hospital. It'slike you're describing them as

(23:18):
if you're looking down on it.And they said to me, why don't
you do some aerial in it? AndI'd never done aerial at all.
And so being, you know, quitesort of, much younger, then I
was like, Yeah, fine. I want todo aerial. So then I went off
and did trapeze training. And tobe fair,
that was my first time. AndI've, yeah, never stopped

(23:41):
raining. I really love having abeing in the air and doing
stuff. But yeah, as I said, thepiece was really playing with
the idea around sort of mobilityand immobility, and actually,
there is a
beauty to,

(24:01):
to difference. And,
and, you know, as a teenager, wespend most of our time trying to
fit in. But actually, as you getolder, you realize there's more
power in being different and notbeing the same as everybody
else. And so, it was really tosort of
play around with that as a as aconcept. And as a way to sort of

(24:27):
yeah, just talk about it, Isuppose. You describe really
frightening scenarios for achild like you were saying the
things you had to listen,operations that you had to face.
How do you how do you rememberperhaps navigating that or
negotiating that in your mind orwhere did your your courage come

(24:51):
from? Family. You know, eventhough I say that I was the only
disabled kid on
the council estate. And anyonethat I knew, in fact, I didn't
really know anybody else.
And even though we were I wasbrought up in a very sort of
mainstream family with with verysort of mainstream views. And

(25:15):
therefore, even as I say,growing up, we didn't, the way
that we spoke about disabilitywas, you know, being
handicapped, the things youcan't do all of those, so that
the language was never reallythere for me. But at the same
time, it was something that wemight not have spoke publicly
about outside of our family, butit was something that was quite,

(25:38):
you know, easy to talk aboutwithin, even though we've now
historically looking back on it,I cringe at the language we use,
but it doesn't mean that theconversations didn't happen. And
I, you know, I spent a lot oftime with my,
with my mother, who became mybest friend and my carer,

(26:00):
because even when I was out ofhospital, I would still be
having to spend, you know, acouple of months, indoors
resting and stuff like that. So,and she was an incredibly sort
of strong woman. So I supposethe combination of sort of
all of that meant that.

(26:22):
Yeah, I don't really know, Ithink that's where I would never
call it courage, because I can'timagine, I suppose in order to
have courage, you need to haveexperience, the other side is
like happy or sad, you don'tknow you're happy if you've
never been sad. So
I think there's a difference tobeing born disabled, rather than

(26:42):
acquiring a disability later inlife. And so for me, I often say
that it was only when I waslike,
probably 13, or 14 that I sawmyself on film.
And this was before I did thecentral TV workshop. Like a home
video, I saw myself walking. AndI was really surprised, because

(27:04):
I hadn't realized that's how Iwalked. Because, within within
my body, it felt completelynormal. It's only when I sort of
saw it from the outside that Iwas like, Oh, right. That's why
people stare. That'sfascinating. So even your own
self perception, and wasconfronted in a way by yourself

(27:28):
at one point.
It's really significant, I thinkhow there's always a general
consensus that courage isultimately about vulnerability.
That that's, that's whereessentially, it comes from. And
it's a curious thing in itself,it's very hard to explain where

(27:49):
it comes from other than
influences like your mom, forexample, people that are
compassionate and supportive,and take an active role in that.
But
I'm also interested in perhapsyour courage being cultivated
through the act of risk. So, allof the adversities that you

(28:12):
describe, always lead toliberation for example, the
trapeze. So now here you are asa trapeze artist, what was that
process, like the challenges onyou, the fears, the risks that
may have raised, but in a waythat perhaps cultivated courage?

(28:34):
Or trust in yourself? Yeah, Imean, um, I just have to say, I,
it's interesting, I sort of,would never sort of call myself
a trapeze artist, I use trapezeor aerial within my work. And
it's, it's, you know, it's, it's
a creative tool that I sometimesuse to get over a message or

(28:55):
something. But risk is reallyinteresting. And I think, again,
it comes back to this,especially as a disabled person,
it comes back to other people'sperceptions. Because,
again, I remember as a as achild being allowed to climb
trees with both legs andplaster, you know, because

(29:19):
because that's what justeverybody did.
And the peace that I'm made withMimbre that Look Mum, No Hands
really does play on this idea ofrisk. And that actually, as a
young disabled person, yoursense of risk is actually
something that's put on you byeverybody else.

(29:43):
We did
when we were making that show,we we did a lot of creative work
with young,
eight to 12 year olds, disabledand non disabled and their
concepts of or understanding ofrisk was was really different.
purely because

(30:05):
purely because that perceptionof what is risky for a disabled
person, or what is risky for anon disabled person was so
different, even though they'rethe same age, and all of that.
So I have never, the things thatI find a risky are not
necessarily physical things, Isay I find much more risk in

(30:28):
sort of social interactions, youknow, those side of things, so
to
be physically risky, I don'tperceive, I quite enjoy, I've
always enjoyed a physicalchallenge.
I might, even when I was atuniversity, the thing that I was

(30:51):
really interested in wasphysical theater, and you know,
that type of stuff. So I'mreally interested in how we can
use our bodies as as tools.
But I suppose for me when itcomes to risk is more the sort
of mental or social aspect ofinteraction

(31:12):
because that involves somebodyelse. That's really interesting.
So obviously, you facilitate allsorts of theater productions.
And as you were saying, withchildren recently with Look,
Mum, No Hands. And I read, youknow, the responses to Look
Mum, No Hands wasn't justoutstanding, creative, amazing,

(31:37):
as if that wasn't enough, butalso the fact that people cried,
they really connected and werevery emotional. And it was, it
seemed because of the friendshipthat you were illustrating, and
the relationship to risk each ofthem had and how that was

(31:58):
explored. I wondered if youmight want to bring that to life
a little for the listeners.Sure. So it's Look Mum, No Hands
is a co production with Mimbre,which is a female led, acrobatic
company. And it's an OutdoorShow. And it's really just the
story of two friends. And one ofthose friends, one of those is,

(32:22):
friends is a wheelchair user.And the other is a non disabled
person. And it's really justtogether about the story is
really just about how they cometogether to explore each other's
boundaries, ultimately, how faryou can push each other, you
know, is because, for me, that'swhat friendship is really about

(32:43):
is the sort of the given thetake, and sometimes you
overstepped the line, and thenyou have to work out how to come
back from that and how torebuild. So really, it's just a
very sort of simple story abouttwo people getting to know each
other. But
we use theatre and acrobatics oraccurate balance, as as the tool

(33:06):
is the metaphor to tell thatstory. So it's nonverbal. And
it's also about those twoindividuals perceptions of each
other, so or you shouldn't dothat, because that's a bit too
risky, for example, Laura,
or Cat, because there's arole share, they speed speed

(33:27):
around in a wheelchair, and thenthe other performance like, Oh,
you shouldn't do that, becausethat's a bit risky. And, and,
likewise, you know, thewheelchair use a performer
pushes too far on the on theother on Danielle,
through just through throughbeing a bit too mischievous or a

(33:47):
bit too bullish if you like, andsort of takes that too far. So
really sorry, that was a reallyWofully answer. But ultimately,
it's a story about two friends,trying to work out how far they
can push each other, and whattheir limits are and what their
boundaries are. And thenultimately, and this is the main
thing, ultimately respectingthem. So actually, you've

(34:09):
overstepped the mark that time,I've learned I now know, an hour
respect it. So. So that's thethat's the sort of story but in
a way, it's generally a story ofany relationship, to be fair,
and it's specifically aimed atyoung people. But I find there's
also a misconception about workfor younger audiences. Whereas,

(34:32):
you know, it's described as sortof children's theater. It's
about bumblebees and sort ofnice happy things. And actually,
our approach to make them workfor your audiences is how do you
make theater accessible toyounger audiences, rather than
making work that is child like?Yeah, and this seems to be such

(34:52):
a wonderful example of, of howyou can, like you were saying
pushing boundaries from the
point of view of a disabledperson pushing boundaries from
the point of view of a nondisabled person. And ultimately,
all in times in terms of oftheir friendship. It's a lovely
wave of including lots ofdifferent perspectives.

(35:14):
It's interesting that you alsomentioned
that exploration of risk in thisproduction in terms of pushing
boundaries, because it seems tome that if we can explore risk
if we're not risk adverse, sofor example, I don't like the

(35:35):
saying curiosity killed the cat,I think that's deeply
prejudiced. Because by beingopen by exploring risk in it in
a safe way, but at least in animaginative way, surely we
cultivate trust in ourselves, wehave to learn to trust our
bodies, or trust our instincts,for example, trust our gut

(35:58):
feeling, for example,
does that not amount to a formof courage that that helps
facilitate being brave enough togo forward to develop to make
new decisions? Within the show,when we were exploring the sort
of the themes and stuff? We welooked at it as what is risk?

(36:21):
And what is independence? Andespecially for young people? How
do you become independent ofyour parents?
And actually, the only way youcan become independent of your
parents is for a, you to takesmall risks all the time, and
for your parents to take smallrisks all the time, in terms of
letting you go out. And youknow, so actually, the this

(36:45):
concept of risk comes with suchnegative connotations, but
actually will, everyday we'retaking small risks, you know,
especially, I mean, gosh, overthe last two years, with the
sort of pandemic and things likethat, you know, we've constantly
been having to sort of facerisks on a daily basis. And
whilst yes, they can bedetrimental if, if you're if

(37:08):
that risk is too far.
But at the same time, how can wegrow? How can we develop? How
can we learn if we're not takingrisks, so if you're right, for
me, risk and curiosity are sointerlinked, because in order to
discover something, we sometimeshave to take a risk. And that

(37:30):
can be the tiniest risk that wemight not even perceive as a
risk. But actually, you know,taking the phone up and calling,
you know, that job or callingsomeone,
it's a risk if if you look at itin that sort of way. So
I think we're surrounded by riskall the time, but less risk

(37:50):
results in learning, it resultsin developing it results in
trying something new.
And I don't think it's somethingwe should be afraid of, in that
sense, that not all risk is bad.I couldn't agree more. And
notably, you also mentioned thatin comparison to physical risk

(38:17):
taking, you actually find socialinteraction, perhaps more risky
or more challenging. Is thischallenging now our social
interaction? Not so much?Because I mean, as I said, at
the start, I was a bit like fiveminutes beforehand, I was like,
Well, what's going to be said,what's going to be said? But I

(38:38):
suppose it's because Iunderstand the context of what
we're going to be I thinkconversation about.
And I think the,
for me, it's, yeah, I find therisk of social interaction, for
me is really tied into

(38:58):
what
I'm thinking people are perceivingme as if that makes sense. So
it's a much more internaldialogue than in the actual
interaction. It's sort of like,what they're thinking I'm doing,
or were they, you know, if I'msat down in, say, a bar or
something, and I start chattingto somebody, and but they

(39:18):
haven't seen me move. There'salways that moment of like, oh,
no, I'm gonna have to get up ina minute. And then they're going
to like, Oh, I didn't expectthat, you know, so my, and
therefore I go, what's that? Howis how is that moment then going
to influence how we interactfrom that moment onwards? Now,
that's really interesting,because you're dealing with

(39:39):
reactions all of the time thatsomeone who doesn't have a
disability doesn't have to havethe same awareness of it seems a
good time from that point ofview to raise Nicaragua because
that seems enormouslychallenging and physically and

(39:59):
in turn
serve social interactions andperceptions. So
it's a BBC to production BeyondBoundaries. So for the listeners
who who won't know the programor haven't seen it, could you
give some context and, andperhaps share exactly what those
challenges were?

(40:19):
You? Yeah, so this was somethingthat happened in 2005, I think.
And
basically, it was, they broughttogether, the BBC decided to do
this program called BeyondBoundaries. And they brought
together 11, disabled people,and a mixture of sorts of

(40:40):
impairments. And basically, in anutshell, dropped us off on,
let me get my math right,dropped us off on the east coast
of Nicaragua. And then we havefour weeks to make our way
across the West Coast. Andthat's about 200 miles as the as
the crow flies. And basically,they just filmed it. And they

(41:01):
wanted to see how a group ofdisabled people could work with
each other, to climb mountainsand get across lakes and all of
that type of stuff.
I just start off by saying itwas like an amazing experience.
And,
yes, so we had to go to a rainforest, we have to climb

(41:22):
mountains, we have to go upvolcanoes, we have to do
horseback riding
again. And when you talk aboutrisk, it's really interesting.
Because one of the even thoughit was risky in the sense of we
could, you know, people gotinjured and had to leave and be
helicoptered out, stuff likethat. But at the same time, it
wasn't risky, because we were atthe BBC. So we knew anything did

(41:42):
happen, we would be looked afterincredibly well, very quickly.
What was interesting aroundthat, whereas the it was at a
time in my life, where I justfinished a job and wanted to do
something different. So Isuppose going into that process,
I was very open, and really sortof, like the social

(42:05):
interactions, and then meetingnew people I actually found
fascinating.
Not saying that we all got onall the time.
And again, the physical stuff,you know, I think I broke down
once on those four weeks. Andthat's when I got lost on a
volcano and realized I was on myown. And then suddenly, I was

(42:25):
really like, gosh, what if I letmy What have I done here.
But what was interesting wasthat actually, even though it
was a really wonderfulexperience, by time, it got to
the sort of, for one hourprogrammes for BBC Two on a
Tuesday, when I watched themback, the thing that was the

(42:47):
most risky for me, was becauseactually what how we had been
sort of edited or perceived,sort of played into this idea of
a charity model of disability,rather than the social model of
disability, which, during thefilming, I kept talking about
the social model, and it's, I'mnot disabled, because of my, my
medical condition, I'm disabledbecause of the world in which I

(43:09):
live. None of that sort of madeinto the program. And it was all
very much like, aren't thesepeople brave, and I suppose I
sort of got into that wholeprocess with my eyes closed or,
or just ignoring that, because Iwanted to spend four weeks
trekking across Nicaragua.
But it was, you know, it didchange people's perceptions. It

(43:30):
did.
Challenges all, but it felt, youknow, if you were to watch it,
now, I'd feel I sort of wouldwatch it through sort of
cringe covering my eyes slightlygoing, Gosh, you know, just
because of the way that it sortof, played into this sort of non

(43:52):
disabled mainstream view of whatit means to be disabled. So I
have a sort of love and sort ofuncomfortableness with with with
the program. But it was stilllike an amazing
experience and something that,you know, again, people have
this notion and this idea thatwhich the program tied in,

(44:15):
played into a little bit thatyou know, as a disabled person,
you know,
your life choices, all of thatwould they are reduced, but
actually, what am I trying tosay? I'm trying to say that, I
wouldn't be working in the arts,if it wasn't because I was
disabled, I wouldn't have hadthat opportunity if I wasn't

(44:38):
disabled. So I think there'sthis idea that, that being
disabled is a bad thing. We'reactually a lot of the people I
know who are disabled. Yes, wefaced barriers on a regular
basis, but actually beingdisabled as part of my identity.
Being a queer man is part of myend identity, being sort of you

(44:59):
know, growing up
on a council estate is part ofmy identity, and neither one of
them is less valid than theother. And actually, all of that
make me who I am. So it's aboutownership. It's about identity.
It's about pride. And it's aboutunderstanding that, you know,
there is a great
community

(45:20):
that that just doesn't getportrayed or seen is a
fascinating series.
Bearing in mind, everythingyou're saying, and people can
always hop onto to YouTube tosee clips or episodes still, it
is incredibly grueling from whatI've seen, I mean, military

(45:42):
level grueling
and, and properly frightening. Imean, when I mentioned, I don't
I forget about all the sorry, Iforget about all I forget about
the army.
Forget about, you know, peoplegetting injured and being
helicoptered out. And all ofthat type stuff. I mean, it was
yeah, it was it was full on.Yeah, I mean, the explanation of

(46:06):
armed soldiers going aheadbecause of bandits, kidnappers,
cocaine smugglers, thecrocodiles was scary enough.
And then if not inevitably, theexplosions of people's tensions,
emotional exhaustion, you know,it's fascinating on lots of
levels, I'm interested

(46:27):
in the fact that you were one ofseven out of the 11 that
actually completed the wholemission. And you mentioned the
volcano and being loud last onthe volcano, you did conquer the
volcano. But can we dig intothat a little bit more about
what was really happening to youthen? And how come you were

(46:49):
there on the volcano on yourown? What on earth was going
through your mind for you toactually still find a way to
conquer it?
Stubbornness
comes down to it.
I'm very competitive, andsometimes competitive is again
is a bad thing. You know, oh,gosh, he's really competitive.

(47:12):
And
fear of missing out? I don'tknow, there was there was
something that well, there's acouple of things a I was I was
just pissed off that I had sortof
the idea felt in that momentthat people had left me. And
yeah, there were many factors,how I ended up on my own on the,
on the volcano. But in thatmoment, I felt that everyone had

(47:35):
just left me. And so thatbrought back quite a lot of sort
of, you know,
being in hospital on your ownall of those sorts of childhood
sort of
things. And then I suppose itwas Yeah, I was just sort of, I
suppose it goes back to thiscourage, doesn't it really, in
terms of, I was sort of, like, Idon't want to be in a position

(48:01):
where this mountain has brokenme. And maybe that there is
internal, there's, I'm surethere is some internal internal
ableism. Within that, as inlike, I've got to prove myself,
you know, because just becausewe're disabled doesn't mean we
don't have our own internalableism. And it was interesting,
because I do remember getting tothe top of volcano and the film

(48:22):
crew there. And they were like,can you just wait there or just
got to change change the camera,and I just remember swearing at
them going No way. And Iliterally got to the top of
volcano where, right? I mean, itwent straight back down. Whereas
everybody else was just enjoyingthe view. I was just like, now,
I just need to sort of stick myflag and then I'm heading back

(48:43):
down. Because this is not apleasurable experience. What do
you think you really conquered?Obviously, you did conquer the
volcano, what were you reallyconquering in terms of yourself?
In terms of myself?
That's a really tough question.I went into that program,
wanting to prove to myself thatno matter what, regardless of my

(49:11):
body's pros and cons, itslimitations, however you want to
sort of describe it, thatactually, I know it well enough.
And I know that my body canserve me to how I need to be, if
that makes sense.
So I suppose in a way, it wasjust sort of like it was yeah,
it was sort of conquering thisidea that my body would let me

(49:34):
down at some point. And meknowing full well, that actually
I've lived in this body for 30odd years by that point. And I
knew it intimately. And I knewwhat it was capable of and what
it wasn't capable of. And in away I just wanted to sort of
test myself as interestingbecause that seems to relate to
what we were saying earlierabout building trust, trusting

(49:56):
yourself trusting your body.It's a form of resilience, isn't
it?
Yeah, totally. And I think, youknow, again, when we talk about
sort of risking curiosity, thereare things that I'm not gonna
do. Because for me physically,because I sort of know, the sort
of,
I know the limitations, and Iknow that there is probably a

(50:19):
couple of steps beyond that Icould go if I really wanted to
test it. But of course, youknow, it's all got to be said,
calculated, but that's notright. It's, you know, there's
got to be a reason, a desire,something in that. And I suppose
my outlet is like, How can I dothat? In a, how can I use my

(50:40):
body and get other people to usetheir bodies
and push the boundaries within acreative context. So it has,
meaning it has emotion it hasfeeling rather than it just
being,
you know, I'm not, I'm not aParalympian. I'm not pushing my
body just to sort of break arecord. I mean, I'm wanting to

(51:03):
work with like minded peoplethat look at sort of
physicality, that look at sortof aesthetics of access, which
is a term that I use,
and how that can be a thing of
beauty, even though it's notperceived as it fascinates me,
because after looking at thatseries, I was really curious as

(51:30):
to if Darryl was producing anddirecting this series today,
what would his approach be,first of all, it would be to
address the sorts of issuesaround the the types of
conversations that we wereencouraged to have.
So actually, I supposeultimately, I it would be

(51:52):
political. And that doesn't meanit has to be political with a
big P, it can be political witha small p, it would have, it
would be around those moments ofone of the things that wasn't in
that program enough. For mehaving been through it was the
laughter, we had a really funtime, you know,

(52:13):
we were sort of, we take thepiss out of each other.
Again, it comes ties into thiswhole sort of, you know,
disability culture of, you know,a hierarchy of disabilities,
and, and, you know, and, youknow, taking the piss out of
each other because of theirimpairments, or how they do, you

(52:34):
know, that type of thing, whichreally just sort of,
again, I suppose it goes back towhat we're talking at the
beginning around taking fun seriously allowing that, you
know, there was hardly anylaughter in our program when it
was aired.
And, of course, it's, you know,I should have realized it was
reality TV type model, where,you know, the, the entertainment

(52:56):
is in the conflict, whereas forme, the entertainment is in the,
the entertainment and theeducation, for want of a better
word is not in the conflict. Itmight be in how it's resolved,
it's actually in around thereality of what it means. And
and I felt that was missing. SoI would approach it from the

(53:16):
sense of, it'd be interesting totake all that footage and re
edit it in my sort of narrative.So it's not about replacing it,
but actually, how would you reedit it to actually show the
moments that are? Yeah, funnythat actually, and sometimes,
you know, a little bit sort ofclose to the edge, because then
that allows you the space to tounpick that and have

(53:40):
conversations around it and sortof like, is that too far? Is
that not too far? Again, itcomes back to this whole thing
of risk curiosity boundaries,you know, I think, I think,
gosh, now discovering everythingI do is is within that sort of,
realm, it would be brilliant topropose that if you could get
your hands on that footage andre edit it, because what really

(54:03):
leaps out to me is if that wasfull of laughter, as well as the
struggle and the demands of thatadventure.
Isn't it shocking that that wasdenied? It's a prejudice reminds
me of what you were sayingearlier in the film, when you
were 15. As soon as you stoodup, that was edited out, you
know, that's a very acutechoice. Why remove the laughter

(54:27):
and humanity that was part ofthis group of people survival? I
mean, it was I mean, it'd beinteresting, because they
didn't, they didn't another twoseries, because this was the
first series I did, they didanother two afterwards, which
was interesting, because theparticipants to evolve, got
younger and younger. So I don'tknow how it would evolve and
whether that would be theapproach they would take today,

(54:50):
because it wasn't really, youknow, 20 years ago, and sort of
things have moved on. Well, Isay that things have moved on.
We've still got sort ofUndateable and all of that.
lack of programming that justsort of, you know,
speaks to that sort of charitymodel again, but I think that's
it. And I think and I thinkthat's what comes back to sort

(55:11):
of all of the my approach to thetheater in the work that I make
is how do we represent, present,use all of those facets that
make us that make us human. Andso for example, you know, I was
talking about, you know, look,mom, and also another show of

(55:32):
mine, a Square World, the verysad stories, but the reason that
the reason people find thememotional is because one minute,
they can empathize with thecharacter, or they are the
character, they're having reallygood fun with them. And then
something happens that they knowhasn't happened to them. But
then they're back with, sothe audience are able to dip in

(55:53):
out and follow and feel like thecharacter, but then also
understand the difference thatthat character has to them. And
yeah, sorry, I can't rememberwhere I was going with that. I
just went off on one. But But
yeah, but it's around showing,showing people as human good
band, best bits, ugly bits,rather than just focusing,

(56:16):
focusing a narrative on apredetermined assumption of what
it is this person can or cannotdo. Yeah, absolutely. So as I
racw the clock, Daryl,something I mentioned in the
introduction, and and inrelation to what you were just
saying, actually, was the swaypolls. And you were part of the

(56:39):
2012 opening ceremony of theParalympics. And you said, I'm
not a Paralympian. But you werecertainly a key performer at the
opening ceremony. I wondered ifyou could bring that to life to
people what what that is suapeold performance and tell us
about the challenges perhaps ofthat, that choreography, the

(57:01):
fear and the celebration. Soyes, I was part of the
specialist aerial team on theParalympic opening ceremony
2012.
And for few years prior to that,I've been working on a
collaboration between graphicscompany and an Australian based
company called Strange Fruit.And they perform Strange Fruit

(57:27):
they, they have beendescribed, they're described as
creating communities in the sky.So basically, the performers
stand on top of a 20 foot polethat bends. And depending on how
you move your body, the polebends in different ways. So you
can do synchronized choreographyin the air. And when we started
to develop that work, whatbecame very apparent quite early

(57:52):
on was that in order to the waythat they're designed, is that
you stand on top of them.Whereas I wasn't able to stand
on top of it. Because eventhough I can stand up, I
certainly don't have thestrength to move the pole in the
same way as everybody else. Andwe see, it's interesting, we
spent a lot of time trying tofix the problem of me standing

(58:14):
on it. So you know, I wouldstand on it. But they're
different straps, and all ofthis type of stuff. And one day,
we were just like, oh my gosh,this is so not the right
approach. Because actually,we're trying to make me fix the
fit the pole. And actually, ifyou take a social model approach
to it, the pole needs to fit menot the other way around. So

(58:36):
then they were like, I'll justsit on it. So then they put a
little seat, they tried out alittle seat, and then suddenly,
I was able to operate it stillin a different way to everybody
else. But actually, it was ableto keep the momentum going and
create it and actually whatevolved from that. Like all good
things. When you start to putaccess and inclusion at the
start of something, you end upwith something different that

(58:58):
you might not have expected. Soactually, we sort of evolved the
physicality of how to work onthese polls.
And then, and again, it wascreative, its physical, it was
allow me to get in the air andtry something. So again, for me,
there wasn't really sort of anyfear or risk within that. And

(59:18):
then when we moved into theParalympic opening ceremony, it
was directed by Genesee Lee,
Bradley Hemming from Greenwich and Docklands
International Festival. And whatwas really interesting around
that is that they had a massiveback catalogue of artists

(59:40):
they've worked with over thelast 10 years disabled and non
disabled that that they justbrought in to do this big
opening ceremony. And unlike anyof the other opening ceremonies
for the Paralympics.
It was an inclusive piece. Itwas political. It spoke about
human rights. It put disability
See in the context of being ahuman right, rather than

(01:00:02):
something that's 'other.'
And, and I sort of and, yeah, sothere was lots of different
areas, there were differentperformances, and it told a
narrative.
And of course, on a massivescale, the stadium was what,
like 80,000 people, that was anamazing experience to perform in

(01:00:22):
that. I remember, I was alsodoing some of the harness work.
So I flew across the top of thestadium as well. And I remember
being pulled up. And that wasabout 25-30 meters off the
ground, I remember being pulledup at the start, and the
ceremony opened and all thefireworks went off. And then
suddenly, you're just like, inthe middle of

(01:00:43):
the stadium flying around. Itwas, it was amazing. But
what is really interesting, andI'll just make this point is
that
we talk in the in the arts, wetalk about inclusive work,
which again, is something otherthan the mainstream. And

(01:01:04):
actually, it's around, how doyou flip that on its head,
because actually, if themainstream is something that's
available to most people, and
by making your work exclusive,exclusive, mainstream is
exclusive. But by making yourwork inclusive, all you're
trying to do is open themainstream up to more people. So

(01:01:27):
therefore, you know, beinginclusive isn't isn't
specialist, it's actually beyondthe mainstream, because you want
more and more people to beinvolved in it. And so when you
look at the Paralympic openingceremony, people say it was an
amazing ceremony and amazingpiece of theater. But
ultimately, it's an inclusivepiece of theater because it was

(01:01:49):
disabled, non disabled, silencerinterpreted, auto described, you
know, all of that. But nobodysort of looks at the Paralympic
opening, London 2012. ceremonyand goes, That was a piece of
inclusive theater, when in fact,it was. And I think that's
always the essence for me isactually

(01:02:10):
being inclusive isn't beingbespoke, it's about actually
going beyond the mainstream,beautifully said, beautifully
said, because I really believethere's a lot of importance
attached to why we need torevisit and explore what
curiosity means and what whatcourage means. And I think that

(01:02:31):
is, when we talk about access toinclusion, especially I'm
talking from a sort of creativepoint of view, is that you have
to be curious, in order to solvethe problem. So actually, if
there is a barrier preventingsomebody, then ultimately to
address that is creative problemsolving. And in order to be

(01:02:52):
creative problem solving, youhave to be curious about what
could possibly be the otheroptions. And so, yeah, it's all
tied up into the same sort ofthing. Everything you've talked
about, is wildly impressive, andinspiring. And so kind, your
joyousness is so kind, it's verycompassionate, what you're

(01:03:14):
aiming to share. And when Iconsider all of the social
barriers, you've had to pushaway from disability performance
working in, in theatre, you'reconsistently referring to how
the arts in a way always savedyou always helps you thrive. The

(01:03:35):
irony, in fact of how the artsliberated you. So from that
point of view, and the seriesquestion, Can art save us?
Yes. And I think there is,
again, it becomes how do wedefine art? That
is a series as a question, but

(01:03:59):
majority of my work involvescreating work or working with
young people. I find such greatpleasure and joy and creativity
within that purely around youknow,
theatre etiquette hasn't beenhasn't set in yet. You know, I

(01:04:21):
say that, you know, creatingwork for your audiences means
that, you know, they're veryvocal, if they find something
boring, they will tell you thereand then in the moment, mid
performance, this is boring,man, when can I go home? You
know, so you're having toconstantly evolve and make sure
you can keep them engaged.
And, and working and all of myshows are created or developed

(01:04:44):
with young people as a startingpoint. And that's because you
young people regard even 14,15year olds, they pretend they
don't, but they do still useplay as a way to learn as a way
to discover
Whether that's sort of, youknow, playing families with
teddy bears or you know, or eventhrough social media and things

(01:05:08):
like that, sort of playing withideas, you know, and
play is art, and artists play.And so the so the two are so
intertwined. And where is thenether safe way to try and work
something out then play. Becauseplay, you can make up your own
rules, you can stop playing atany point you want, you can move

(01:05:31):
on. So for me art and play. Andthis is why when we talk about
taking fun seriously and playseriously is because it's a way
to
its way to explore and todiscover. And so for me,
whether you define something asart or not, if it involves play,

(01:05:53):
I think it is creative, becauseyou're having to use your
imagination, you're having tothink of different scenarios.
And so can art save us? Yes, itcan. Beautifully said and it is
of course the art of play. Soplay certainly is part of that.
Daryl, like I can't thank youenough for your time. It really

(01:06:14):
is joyous talking to you. Andthere will be a link to your
work on your episode page. And Iencourage everybody to leap on
Discover more be curious commentabout curiosity. But not only
have you conquered mountainsyou're clearly moving mountains
in the name of inclusion. And Ican't thank you enough for what

(01:06:38):
you're doing and for your timetoday. Well, thank you for
having me.
It's an honor. Very well. It'sbeen an honor talking to you.
Thank you, Darrell.