For out of olde feldes, as men seyeth,
Cometh al this newe corn from yer to yere,
And out of olde bokes, in good feyth,
Cometh al this newe science that men lere.
(Geoffrey Chaucer, Pariliament of Fowls, ll. 22-25).
My storytelling weaves medieval narratives together with English folk song. Often moving, occasionally political, frequently feminist, just a little queer and regularly funny, my stories underline the relevance and vibrancy of medieval narratives for today’s world.
I’ve told stories in some gorgeous and unusual venues, including two cathedrals, at Swansea Waterfront Museum, literature festivals, theatres, folk festivals in the UK and USA and at academic conferences. You can find lists of my current and past storytelling events via the links.
I am currently open for commissions as a storyteller, researcher, trainer, dramaturg and director. I am particularly keen on doing more dramaturgy and directing work for storytellers. You can find a summary of some of my previous projects and workshops here.
Contact me at daisy-removethis@daisyblack.uk (delete the obvious) for more information.
Workshops and Training
Dramaturgy: I have worked as a director/dramaturg with several storytellers, including Tim Ralphs, Carmel Page and Tamar Williams. I also have extensive experience in working with actors in one-person shows, including my work with Dark Tales at the Arena Theatre and the Manchester Cathedral Monologues.
Working as a solo performer can be very isolating, and I can help with everything from initial research for a storytelling show (with expertise in medieval to early modern stories) to helping with structure, flow and the honing the performance itself. I particularly enjoying helping performers explore movement and rhythm in their performance; playing with delivery and timing and crafting poetic imagery. Get in touch to see how we might work together.
Workshops: I also run a regular portfolio of training workshops for academics from various disciplines, arts, charity and heritage practitioners on using storytelling in public engagement, as well as practical storytelling workshops for creative writers, actors, teachers, festivals and schools. I am happy to tailor the workshops to the needs of the individual group.
Storytelling shows
The shows below are available for £250 plus expenses. This is negotiable for story clubs and charities.
Yde and Olive: A Medieval Love Story
The baby’s first clothes were wide bands of wool. Their small limbs were bound, tenderly and close, to help them grow strong.
To help them
grow straight.
From their cradle, they could hear the prayers of a priest, the rush of poured water.
The baby blinked as drops of holy water flicked across their brow.
They were given a name. Yde.
And with it came flocking other words. ‘She’. And ‘Her’.
Baby Yde scrunched up her nose, and yawned.
Yde grew up reading of knights, sieges and her own mother’s daring deeds. So when faced with an unwanted marriage, she knew she’d rather fly across the frozen sea than sit around and wait for it to happen. Disguising herself as a man, Yde cuts her own paths to freedom, fighting battles, outwitting thieves, winning over kings and finding comfort in her new clothing. Until one day, she meets her match in Olive: a woman whose spirit is every bit as courageous as her own…
Storyteller and academic Daisy Black presents a remarkable thirteenth-century tale of disguise, high adventure, public baths, gender fluidity, straight-talking angels, and the power of queer love.
Weaving together medieval narrative with modern folk song, this performance will take you from birthing chambers to military barracks, through moonlit country lanes and woods stained with slaughter, to quiet chapels and court chambers crackling with gossip.
This show is 90 minutes long, and suitable for ages 13 and up. Children under 16 should be accompanied by an adult.
Feedback from the world premiere at the Gender and Medieval Studies conference, Lincoln:
‘Incredibly inspiring and moving’.
‘The story itself was so complex and layered, and Daisy’s delivery made it incredibly captivating’
‘A beautiful mix of pathos and humour. I found it mesmerising and moving’.
‘Incredible storytelling…medieval queer and trans joy’.
‘I loved hearing about medieval queer history and experiencing such a beautifully told story! Immersive and full of suspense and empathy.’
‘I was not expecting the tale to be so creative and hilarious! Delightful blending of historical facts, audience interactivity and joy. Helps the audience understand queer experiences and historic struggles and awakens the past.’
‘Such a powerful and accessible way to share a story and create something so beautiful about tolerance.’
The Bayeux Tapestry: The Full Yarn
The beasts of battle gather in the tapestry borders.
Ravens, wolves, eagles. All creatures – common, fantastic, wild, domestic –
hold their stitched breath
as the battle gathers
Waiting.
Until at last, William and Harold face each other over some few feet of linen.
The embroidered King wants to finish his church at Westminster. The English Earl and Norman Duke want the English throne. The hawk wants to be out in the fields, hunting for mice.
Storyteller and academic Daisy Black provides a hawk’s eye view of the Bayeux Tapestry, where kings battle, oaths are broken and wheels of cheese are stolen by crafty foxes.
Interweaving the fables of the Bayeux Tapestry’s margins and human narratives with Anglo-Saxon poetry and English folk song, this one-woman show stitches together a vivid, epic and moving account of the events leading up to 1066.
Seventy metres of history in a single hour!
This story lasts for 60 minutes and is suitable for ages 8 and up.
Feedback from the world premiere at Canterbury Cathedral, Kent:
‘Informative and funny’.
‘A wonderful mixture of folk song, embodied performance, comedy, history – utterly mesmerising and enchanting’.
‘It skilfully wove together analysis of history, gestures, clothing, folklore and song to create an immersive and riveting show’.
‘As a Normanist, even I felt some sympathy for the Anglo-Saxons’.
Broken Shells: A Medieval Sea Story
In a little room in Rome, a bride sits at her window. The deep windowsill is covered with litter – a scrap of dried seaweed, the jagged edge of a pink scallop, scattered grains of sand. Her eyes are fixed on the ocean outside.
She has always loved the sea.
But now the day has come. Yesterday, she wept. She wept to be sent away from friends who care for her, sent to be a foreigner in strange land and bound to a man she doesn’t know.
She wept because, of course, everyone knows that all husbands are good.
And the waves rush up, and the stars rotate, and the waves pull back again.
Storyteller and academic Daisy Black brings to life Chaucer’s Man of Law’s Tale – a tale of love, fear, passion, violence and the queer, cold seas which roil and coil between nations.
Custance, who has beauty without pride, youth without foolishness and strength without tyranny, finds herself cast adrift at sea. Forced to endure hostile lands and people, and carve paths for herself among strange cultures, the strongest of Chaucer’s heroines strings her strength across the oceans, telling us what it is to love and to survive.
Set among the eddies and currents of medieval romance, classical mythology and English folk song, this one-woman show tells a haunting, visceral, occasionally funny tale that will whirl round your senses, lace your tongue with salt and take you across the sapphire-worked seas to walk with the creatures at the far edges of the map.
This story lasts for 60 minutes and is suitable for ages 13 and up.
Feedback from the world premiere at the National Waterfront Museum, Swansea:
‘Daisy Black‘s retelling of the Constance legend, she skilfully drew out the painful feminist narrative of a woman tossed from shore to shore by the demands of patriarchy, but who survived, and survived, and survived’.
‘A remarkable solo performance’.
‘A riveting retelling of the Man of Law’s Tale.’
Unruly Woman
It is impossible
That any clerk speak well of women.
Who painted the lion, tell me, who?
By God, if women had written stories
As clerks have in their studies
They would have written more of men’s wickedness
Than all the mark of Adam might redress.
(Geoffrey Chaucer, The Wife of Bath’s Prologue).
Storyteller and academic Daisy Black presents indecorous assortment of medieval tales from around Europe about women who gain the upper hand – or, occasionally, the upper arse.
These are stories of sex, of disguise and deception, of arse-kissing, and of women finding creative, naughty and cunning ways to overcome the restrictions placed upon them by their gender and class.
Interlacing medieval fabliaux and romance with bawdy folk songs, this one-woman performance pays homage to literature’s original ‘nasty women’.
The performance lasts for one hour and is suitable for ages 16 and up.
Mappa Mundi
‘Here, I found beasts like minotaurs, useful for war’.
Let the twelve winds blow you to the far corners of the Earth; meet mermaids and mandrakes; brush shoulders Alexander the Great and follow the trail of Adam’s burnt footprints all the way back to Eden.
Storyteller and medievalist Daisy Black takes you on a tour around the medieval map of the world.
A show full of marvels, saints and giants, heroes and devils, grisly cannibals and Norwegian skiers. Weaving together medieval maps and travel writing with oral storytelling, this show is your passport to visit the world as a fourteenth-century traveller.
Just watch out for the monsters lurking at the edges of the map…
The performance lasts for one hour and is suitable for ages 13 and up.
Nine Days’ Wonder
The tall tale of Will Kempe’s audacious dance of over 125 miles from London to Norwich in 1599. Star of the London stage, Will Kempe was the sort of man who felt no shame going about town introducing himself as ‘Cavaliero Kemp, head-master of Morrice-dauncers, high Head-borough of heighs, and only tricker of your Trill lilles, and best belshangles’.
Never afraid to upstage his peers, Kempe began his journey to raise money and publicity after he fell out with Shakespeare’s company. From the grotty dive of London’s South Bank to the muddy potholes of the fens, Will was joined by an assortment of locals, including an unfit butcher and a country lass who keeps up with him for a full mile. 
Tripping lightly through history with physical comedy and extracts from Shakespeare, this show pays homage to a man who always followed the beat of a slightly different drum to everyone else.
This story show is designed so that it can either be a stand-alone performance or interwoven with Morris dance or contemporary and theme-appropriate dances taught to the audience. Please contact Daisy if you wish to organise a special dance performance of the show. The performance lasts between one and two hours depending on its format, and is suitable for ages 13 and up.