Part confession, part protest, Art Imitating Life is a visceral verbatim theatre production born from lived experience.

Drawing on the real stories of people navigating PTSD, agoraphobia, anxiety and panic disorders, depression and grief, the piece centres on one patient reeling after the sudden loss of a loved one — a loss so devastating it fractures the fragile stability they had managed to hold together. Isolated by agoraphobia and scarred by past encounters with therapists who “just didn’t get it”, their path to healing begins reluctantly — over the phone.

Blending raw dialogue with short, unflinching films that bring each breakdown and breakthrough to life, Art Imitating Life exposes the quiet injustices in a mental health system where qualifications often outweigh empathy, and where lived experience is still undervalued. Created in close collaboration with people whose voices remain anonymous yet central to its truth, this is theatre that seeks to comfort the unheard while disturbing complacency. It asks: in a world on fire, how can we do more than survive?

A production by Jay James as part of the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival 2025, starring Jay James and Danielle El Jorr-Sives.