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Available for over a year

Some years ago in the Edinburgh festival, I saw a two man show called Icaro. Before the curtains opened, the actor, Daniele Finzi Pasca, picked a member of the audience to share his stage for the evening. The curtain then rose to a shocking sight, the actor and the audience member locked in a mental hospital, each with their own bed. The tales Daniele told about his own mental health treatment were heart-breaking but, in a gentle clown-like manner, Daniele encouraged his new roommate to help him defy the system and make wings out of netting, feathers and all manner of objects for an escape. Watching that member of the public change from being nervous to fully absorbed in helping was magical. And when at the end, the one pair of wings were ready for his escape, we realised that they were in fact for Daniele’s guest. A door to bright light was opened and as Daniele set his roommate free, I wept. After, he told me the show came from an old-fashioned tradition from Switzerland where if a person wasn’t well, the theatre company would go into their home. The patient would then be cast as the actor’s roommate - actor and patient would listen to each other’s terrible truths and traumas and together they would somehow find the imagination for a completely unexpected freedom. On Monday, England will begin a journey towards freedom, all of us working to leave our individual trauma behind. Some of us will find it easier than others to plunge once again into crowds. There may even be a tension between those who need liberation from masks and others who need the safety of masks. But as we see in Icaro, the process of healing is about brave and honest listening alongside the truth that we are profoundly interconnected - both locally and globally. The emergence of new variants has taught us just how dependent we are on each other for our freedom. Freedom is therefore an individual and collective choice to act from compassion and ‘Love our neighbour as our selves’. If we let the grace and creativity that comes from that to guide us in an inclusive way forward, we can build new wings and open the door.