With mental health awareness rising significantly over the past decade, it was no surprise to see Matt Haig's 2015 memoir Reasons To Stay Alive become such a massive publishing sensation.
Part self-help manual, part autobiography, the book examined Haig’s crippling battle with depression and anxiety with searing honesty and insight.
A number one best-seller with numerous celebrity endorsements (including Stephen Fry and Jo Brand), Reasons To Stay Alive has become one of the defining books on modern society’s mental health epidemic.
Now, four years on from its publication, the book is about to reach an even wider audience. A TV adaptation, from the same production team behind Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag, is currently in the works.
But, before that, Haig’s book is being brought to the stage in a new production from English Touring Theatre and Sheffield Theatres.
Haig said: "I think what's been brilliant about the play is how they've taken bits out of the book which aren't necessarily the most obvious bits for adaptation and made them so dramatic.
"I thought just the simple walking to the corner shop while I was having a panic attack, when I was agoraphobic and I couldn't do it, and they managed somehow to conjure the intensity that internally I was feeling.
"I hope people who've seen Reasons To Stay Alive on the stage have a similar response to the book in that they are educated a little bit about depression and mental health and are taken to quite a dark place but find the hope within that, you know?"
Adapted by director Jonathan Watkins, the show will use sharp storytelling, movement and sound to chart Haig’s journey from despair to hope. As with the book, this stage adaptation will consist of imagined conversations between an older Matt (played by Phil Cheadle) and a younger version of himself (played by Mike Noble).
Haig said: "What's happened with it is actually a lot of people who come to Reasons To Stay Alive and read it, they're actually not people who are in that situation, but they're people who are wanting to understand, what depression is like, what anxiety is like what panic attacks are like, because they're often invisible things.
"So, I think one of the by products has been to sort of make this unseen thing a bit more seen.
"And also to give people hope, not just the people going through it, but their partners, their family members as well."
An absolute must-see for fans of the book – and anyone with an interest in mental health issues – the production now arrives at HOME following its acclaimed world premiere at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre in September.
Haig said: "I think what the play does very well is show the intensity of it, it doesn't shy away from any of the sort of warts and all stuff of mental illness, and about how frustrating it can be to live with someone like that.
"And I hope that realism comes across, while at the same time I think the audience leave on quite an optimistic feeling and a hopeful feeling."
HOME / homemcr.org / 0161 200 1500 / Tuesday, October 29 to Saturday, November 2 / £10-£24
