Beyonce’s Bathroom, Blindness & Saying Yes with David Eagle - S3E4

25 May 2023

Over 2 million people in the UK live with blindness, and few could bring a more hilarious spin on living their entire life without sight as the incredible David Eagle!

A blind comedian & folk musician, David lost his sight at 9 months, and beyond his side-splitting perspective on life with visual impairment, there’s so much richness in his story.

Join us on Hope & Anchor as Trey & Jaz chime in with David on the controversial SATs papers, Beyonce’s inclusive toilets, and the transgressive power of Eurovision.

This episode covers:

• Life with blindness, and how it feeds into his hilarious comedy routines
• The spiritual collectiveness of singing together
• Families staying strong amid SATs stresses
• Beyonce’s team creating inclusive toilets on tour
• Thoughts on the peaceful, transgressive nature of Eurovision

Episode highlights

Seeing AI will read what’s on the screen. But obviously, you have to point it in the right place. It doesn’t read everything 100% accurately, which is exactly what you want when you’ve got an option which is ‘Completely format your hard drive and ruin everything’, or ‘Fix the problem’.” - 7:30 - David Eagle

“There’ll be so many times where I’m absolutely fine. I’m just walking along, and maybe I’ll stop, and someone will just assume that I want to cross the road. a) They won’t ask me if I want to cross the road and b) they don’t ask me whether they need to be a part of my road-crossing process! ” - 9:30 - David Eagle

“The line I was gonna say from this song is ‘Hearts on fire, but no Messiah’. Now that’s not an anti-God statement. It’s just that there isn’t a God that needs to be there at this moment in time to move those people in that way. They’re singing simply for the joy of singing, so I think it’s massively spiritual.” - 17:00 - David Eagle

“I think at that age kids are almost told- teachers aren’t necessarily consciously saying ‘Don’t mess this up, because it’s your only chance’, but the subconscious is picking up on that because the teachers are stressed. The teachers are stressed because they’re valued on what the children do.” - 26:30 - David Eagle

“When Rachel said ‘Say yes to things that are offered to you’, I thought it was more of a spiritual thing of saying yes to opportunities. It turns out it’s just accruing free stuff!” - 34:30 - David Eagle

“Beyonce’s team is placing gender-neutral stickers over traditional male/female symbols, and I say Amen, Beyonce! Knowing yourself to be included because of who you are is so important for your emotional and spiritual health.” - 36:30 - Trey Hall / Jaz Ampaw-Farr / David Eagle

“There’s a lot of talk about peace in Eurovision, and about needing to sort out conflicts and things. There are ideals that we aspire to, but we’re all living in countries where our own governments and our own people aren’t exacting those policies. So in some ways, it is slightly transgressive.” - 42:50 - David Eagle