‘Mums still thank me over 20 years on from my role in Joseph!'

This week’s columnist: Theatre star Maria Friedman

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I believe the arts are crucial to society; as an essential muscle that communities need. Storytelling is historic, it’s as ancient as mankind, and we need it. It’s a great catharsis, it’s a leveller, it brings people together, it transports and transforms. It’s all the things that are essential for human beings who are struggling so much. With live theatre, you can be transported so much, you don’t even know you’re in your own body.

That’s what happened to me when I was lucky enough to see two of the greatest ever, Laurence Olivier and Joan Plowright, in Saturday, Sunday, Monday with my mum, when I was 12 or 13. They were cooking a Bolognese sauce throughout the play, and I remember the whole theatre smelled of it, and it has remained my favourite dinner because all my senses were going.