Unfinished Histories was hugely saddened by the death of David Powell on 9th April 2026. David was a lovely human being, a wise man and a loyal supporter of Unfinished Histories. We met in 2013 when we worked together to organise the gathering of Inter-Action alumni that took place on 4th January 2014. It took me a while to realise the depth and breadth of knowledge that David had brought to and built through Inter-Action where founder ED Berman described him as the backbone of the organisation, and which he then took on to the wider cultural world.
David was born in London but grew up outside of Peterborough and was educated at King’s School Canterbury before going to Cambridge University to study History, where he also became involved in theatre and drama including Cambridge Arts Lab. He was recruited by Bruce Birchall into Please Stop Screaming Theatre, which produced political theatre, encouraging children to drop out of education, work which stood him in good stead when roped into doing a workshop with some teenagers as part of his interview with Ed Berman to join Inter-Action. It went well and he was in, earning the standard I-A rate of £1 a day while making decisions cooperatively and living communally in a building in Chalk Farm Rd which doubled as rehearsal space by day and sleeping quarters by night.
His experience of street performance meant later work with the Father Christmas Union or as a Moon Man with Inter-Action’s Dogg’s Troupe would hold no fear for him. He rapidly became versed in the Game Method which was core to I-A’s work across multiple groups from old people to kids excluded from school ,and by late 1969 had taken on financial management of the growing organisation, which soon was running multiple projects including as many as 30 short-life houses, leased from Camden Council for project members, the Fun Art Bus and a Play Bus, the Ambiance Lunchtime Theatre club, later the Almost-Free Theatre in Rupert St, W1; the operation’s core – an empty factory in Cressy Rd, and the old railway yards that would become Kentish Town City Farm, the first in the country and then the original Talacre Centre, also an old factory on the Talacre open space in Kentish Town West which he, Inter-Action and the local community worked to save for sports, arts and other activities. He and Harriet, also coincidentally called Powell, lived at the Farm together – they had met as she was a Royal Academy of Music student, sharing a West Hampstead flat with access to a bath – the only person he knew in London who did! – Inter-Action did not run to such luxuries. Their son Sam was born at the Farm in 1973, before they moved to Inter-Action’s communal housing in Willes Rd when second son Tom arrived.
David remained key to the project throughout the Kentish Town years, managing the multi-stranded projects for Ed and the cooperative, in particular overseeing the design, commissioning and construction of the new Talacre Centre, designed by Cedric Price, Britain’s first bespoke community arts centre that opened in 1977 and was recognised as the closest realisation of Joan Littlewood’s vision of a Fun Palace. When Inter-Action split from Interchange (who took over Talacre Centre before moving to Hampstead Town Hall) and moved to the Royal Victoria Docks, David went with them and from there went to work developing the cultural policy for the London Docklands Development Corporation, before embarking on the wider project of his work as Chair of Boards from Greater London Arts to ACAVA. As an arts consultant, according to Nick Ewbank: ‘he and his company DPA, launched, or played seminal roles in, so many extraordinary things: Iniva, the Baltic, London Film and Video Development Agency, Thames Gateway, the Brighton Dome, Stratford Circus, Derby Quad, Camden Arts Centre – the list goes on. From the mid-nineties he and Pru Robey seem to have authored just about every report going on the UK’s creative economy. Their findings on its scale and the pace of its growth fed directly into the incoming Labour government’s economic plans and into Cool Britannia.’
Unfinished Histories hopes to be part of events to mark the 50th anniversary of the Talacre Centre in 2027 and honour David Powell’s work.
See here for Nick Ewbanks’s Guardian Obituary for David.