Recently, I listened to a production of the Moomin book, Moominsummer Madness , which involves a floating theatre. There’s a quote in it that stopped me in my tracks:   ‘A theatre is the most important sort of house in the world, because that’s where people are shown what they could be if they wanted, and what they’d like to be if they dared to and what they really are.’   Tove Jansson   It made me reflect on my love of the theatre, which Tove Jansson elsewhere described as a

In the October Half Term holiday, I took my son to the Netherlands to see the Van Gogh Museum. We spend most of the time in the wonderful, child-friendly exhibition of Van Gogh's paintings of the Roulins family, who were friends with, and supported Van Gogh when he lived in Arles. Van Gogh moved to the Asylum at St Remy in May 1889, and created some of his greatest work there. He was going through a period of despair when he found out the news that his brother, Theo's wife Jo

Music can speak to the part of us that wants to survive, when we sometimes feel that the part that wishes to die is stronger.