Art Cure: An Evening with Daisy Fancourt at The Other Palace

Maryam Philpott in Central London

Engaging with the arts – including theatre – is good for you and anyone who attends cultural events regularly will attest to their many benefits. Yet arts organizations are closing all over the country, with funding being cut while costs and ticket prices rise, so how can we make a stronger case for the intrinsic health and wellbeing benefits of engaging with theatre?

Charity Go Live Theatre, who support access to theatre for young people, invited the distinguished academic and author Daisy Fancourt to The Other Palace this week to discuss the findings of her new book Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Transform Our Health. This establishes the evidence base for the “psychological, biological, and social impacts” of theatre and other arts that will not only keep your brain feeling younger but contribute as much to sustaining your health as physical activity.

Fancourt is Professor of Psychobiology and Epidemiology at University College London where she heads the Social Biobehavioural Research Group, and Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre on Arts and Health. She was hosted by playwrights Suzie Miller, author of the significant Prima Facie and Inter Alia, and James Graham, writer of Dear England and Punch, who have engaged with Go Live Theatre to tour these works around the UK, facilitate access for schools, and bring new audiences to the plays. They also happen to be friendly rivals in the Best New Play category at this year’s Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards and Olivier Awards in the coming weeks.

Through a wide-ranging discussion, the panel – chaired by broadcaster Hannah MacInnes – brought together the scientific evidence, some astounding statistics, and opportunities for change with the applied experience of creating plays that result in far broader political and social impacts for audiences.

Professor Fancourt drew a gasp of delight from the audience when the latest calculations from her team estimate that the health and wellbeing benefits derived from cultural engagement are in the region of £18.6 billion, the first time that it has been possible to fully quantify economic returns on the nation’s intangible cultural assets and arts investment. But, she warned, as an advisor to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), those returns are then distributed across a number of government departments, meaning who funds the arts in the first place is still debated. However, Greece has recently started an arts on prescription scheme that may pave the way for more governments to think laterally about innovative approaches to health and social care.

Both Miller and Graham offered plenty of examples from their own work to support the case Fancourt is making, seeing theatre as one of the few places of assembly where new ideas or angles can be safely tested and shared, a place, as Miller evocatively described, where a community of strangers can “breathe in the same emotional mist”. A thought Graham extended through his own state-of-the-nation focus on “changes in the public realm”, where places to gather like high streets and working men’s clubs no longer fulfil that unifying function, particularly outside of London, making culture one of the only places, like sport, where shared experiences and emotions can occur.

Asked what can be done to use this scientific and qualitative data to make the case for the arts – which as Graham pointed out has to be done again and again with every change of government and every change of arts minister – Miller joked that loyalty points or fining people through taxation for not attending the theatre might be a good solution, although nothing is more fulfilling than “gifting” culture to others as an investment in their life. Fancourt’s book lays out the evidence but issued a final call to arms, asking people to engage, to support local initiatives, and advocate for educational and social initiatives at every level.

So, the message from Go Live Theatre is not only is theatre good for you but it is also good for the financial and collective health of the nation.

Art Cure: An Evening with Daisy Fancourt took place at The Other Palace on 23 March 2026.