Step right up and enjoy the show!

I thought that if I was to be an effective, reliable and knowledgeable Board member of the Torch Theatre it would be helpful to join the marketing team for a while to help out at a time when they were short staffed. So, having been in senior marketing and communications roles in the NHS, as well as becoming an executive coach for 30+ years and running my own business, I stepped right in. You could say marketing’s the same, the principles are the same. But everything else is different. And brilliant...

For  years I worked in improvement in the NHS and working in the theatre is similar in many ways. We always want to improve and expand our offer, our value to people in our community, our numbers of bums on seats. Our aim’s the same. But with theatre it’s so much more...

My first experience of live theatre was a visit to the ballet when on a junior school trip to Nottingham’s beautiful Theatre Royal to see Giselle and The Rake’s Progress. I was smitten. From there I went to the theatre at every opportunity – with a season ticket at Derby Playhouse during Mark Woolgar and Annie Castledine’s tenures as artistic directors. My horizons were broadened and resulted in a degree in English Literature and Drama which meant visiting all the great theatres across the Midlands for a number of years and learning about all aspects of delivering live theatre. I have enjoyed theatre visits wherever I happened to be living or visiting.

For me theatre and the arts in all forms are about so much more than enjoying a night out – although that’s part of it.  Art is about more than entertainment. It’s about learning and experiencing something new. It’s about being given insight into new and different worlds, it’s about connection and shared experience with everyone else in the audience; it’s escapism; stimulation, inspiration and motivation. So I guess for me it’s personal impact and making me think and making me think differently and teaching me and giving me new perspectives. And yes, it’s fundamentally about my mental health and my wellbeing. If I didn’t visit the theatre or music concerts or art galleries where would all those fresh perspectives and thoughts and ideas come from? I’m not sure. I don’t think there’s an alternative.

At a time when mental health is high on everyone’s agenda, when the world seems so determined to be ‘VUCA’ (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous), when it’s hard to believe and understand what you see and hear in the media, art can connect us to ourselves and to others.

Maybe I’m overthinking and oversharing. You could just come for a great night out!