Ideal for: arts venues, festivals, community venues, libraries

“Entertaining and refreshingly different.”

The Vision: develop and deliver a powerful new way to help people help themselves with their mental health and wellbeing.

Through a touring show, website and books, using the latest in psychology, old wisdom and the ancient potions of story, song, dance and laughter.

Not just awareness of mental health but a toolkit for actions to improve and maintain it, for everyone.

Liberating happiness and wellbeing, one audience at a time!

Mischievous, subversive, fun and fizzing with wisdom, How to Survive and Thrive in an Impossible World - with a piano! is an invitation to stand back and laugh at a world that is quite clearly bonkers, and take a timeout to realise a better way of dealing with it. It’s our “interactive, wellbeing, musical, show thingy!"

Why this show matters

Help raise awareness AND inspire action

Going on national tour throughout 2024 and 2025

Saturday 23 November 2024 - How To Survive and Thrive at Callow End Village Hall, Worcestershire

Saturday 15 February 2025 - How To Survive and Thrive at Doe Lea Resource Centre, Derbyshire

Sunday 16 February 2025 - How To Survive and Thrive at Scamblesby Village Hall, Lincolnshire

More dates to come!

"You really made me think about how I can bring more of *me* to my every day life!"

Artisan Creative presents “the wellbeing musical workout show thingy!”, featuring Steve Bonham and Chris ‘the Bishop’ Lydon.
It's a one-hour performance event - part show, part therapy, part workout, part community celebration! - aimed at helping people on the front line of life renew a sense of resourcefulness and wellbeing.


Its development has been supported by Arts Council England, Air Arts and the University Hospitals of Derby and Burton (UHDB) Wellbeing team.

Based upon Steve Bonham's liberating book “How to Survive and Thrive in an Impossible World”, the show is funny, wise, entertaining and very, very different!

Says Steve: "I can't actually think of a single word to describe this performance, but I know it taps into what an acclaimed academic once said were the universal salves of healing: dancing, singing, storytelling and silence. Expect to laugh, think, be challenged and perhaps never look at yourself the same way again!”

In amongst the tales of spirit dogs, eccentric parents, world long-distance minibikers, trainee stuntmen, and 12th-century German abbesses, the latest insights from neuropsychology, psychotherapy, and evolutionary biology are subtly woven in. The power of song and story to engage the human mind at a conscious and unconscious level is increasingly understood and this makes How To Survive And Thrive In An Impossible World (with a piano!) potent and transformational.

With over 70% of the UK population reporting high levels of anxiety within a 12 month period it is time to:
be wild, be strong, ​ be experimental, travel with companions and take the first step

How to Survive and Thrive is offered as a one-hour show or a half-day workshop, with accompanying website with all the ideas from the show and further resources, so you can refresh and renew at any time.

The show and workshop are suitable for:

  • community events

  • organisations offering employee support

  • arts venues with a wellbeing strand

  • literature / book festivals wanting to do something different

  • libraries offering wellbeing support

A show to build greater wellbeing and resilience ​in a powerful, fun and thought provoking way.

Sponsored by

Supported by

Associated book

A selection of our partners, venues and supporters: