The cackling pair that makes your seat shudder before the lights go down. The bustling – if not mingling – warmth of the audience, murmuring excitements and speculations with an eagerness renewed. The dust motes that dance through the glow of the footlights. The musty smell of old seats and day-worn suits. And finally: the way the air thrums as bodies move through space and voices whisper, intercut, interject, scream and let silence thicken. The sharp intake of breath from the person seated behind you; the way the shoulders the person in front of you suddenly slump. The simple sacred pleasure of watching a story unfold in a shared space as one.

It’s good to be back at live theatre.

Gemma Bird Matheson in Superheroes. Photo © Prudence Upton

At the Seymour Centre, Mark Rogers’ Superheroes has made it an entirely welcome return. A play that spirals its way under your skin, it asks its audience to consider the damage that is done not just to others but to ourselves when we wilfully surrender responsibilities in our personal and political lives. When – out of fear, or self-preservation, or cowardice – we choose...