While evidence is growing that shows how important the arts can be for our health, Bob Neill says that the cultural sector should be seen as an ally in efforts to turbocharge our recovery from the pandemic

I read recently that sales of Station Eleven – Emily St John Mandel's 2014 post-apocalyptic novel set 20 years after a highly contagious virus wipes out most of humanity – increased by 50% last year. In it, a group of performers, the Travelling Symphony, roam through violent, hollowed out territories to put on Shakespeare's plays for the shanty settlements that remain.