1. ice cream. 2. water fights. 3. being allowed to stay up later than usual and watching TV. So begins a seven-year-old boy's list of everything that makes life worth living. The reason for the early confrontation - his mother's first suicide attempt. The boy gets older, the list gets longer. 26. peeing in the sea and nobody noticing. 320. making up after an argument. 123321. palindromes. The list is not only intended to help the author, but also his mother, who is struggling with depression, and his father, who doesn't know how to deal with his pain. When the young man starts university and falls in love for the first time, he adds: 517. Being so familiar with someone that you let them look to see if you have parsley residue between your teeth.

British playwright and director Duncan Macmillan (Breathe) has written a life-affirming and comic monologue on the deadly serious subject of depression. With audience participation, Macmillan light-handedly transforms supposed bugbears into strokes of luck (The New York Times) and finds the perfect balance between what makes you despair about life and what makes it so wonderful(The Independent).