Betsy Lancaster takes part in a conference 'for all who long to discover the creative sparkle within' and finds manifestations in unexpected places.

When Czechoslovak student protester Jan Palach set himself alight in 1969, Jara Moserova-Davidova was one of the specialists who treated him. Now head of UNESCO in the Czech Republic she has lived under Nazi and communist oppression-and seen both systems collapse. She talks to Mary Lean.

`We decided to tell each other about everything we'd done in our lives we'd been ashamed of,' says Philip. `It was not an easy process but a liberating one.'

Andrew Stallybrass meets the mime artist, Michel Orphelin, who has spent the last ten years portraying St Francis on stage.

As one of the capitals of the theatre world, some may think that London already has enough theatres.

A recent Nigerian conference took a form strikingly different from the usual sedentary occasions held within four walls. This 'rolling conference' spanned four different venues hundreds of miles apart.