We're all different. Or are we?

We all remember them, don’t we?

The girl with a speech impediment, the boy who couldn’t walk properly, and another boy who smelled awful.

Each was subject to not-so-secret smirks, outright ridicule or bullying throughout their childhoods.

Because they sounded, looked or smelled different to the rest of us.

The sensitive side of me felt sorry for these children, but not enough to openly stand up for them. Any clumsy attempts on my part to befriend any of them were made when others weren’t around and, in any case, were promptly rejected. They had already developed a hardness, a protective layer that would limit some of the damage, but not all.

I was rather otherworldly as a child. Not physically different, although I rarely felt part of the crowd and was excluded by the invite-only gangs. I was tortured by unrequited love from a distance, as girls preferred the bravado of bullies to the strange daydreams I inhabited much of the time.

I never understood what was wrong with me. Only in later years did I come to realise that nothing was. I was just different.

My wife Michelle is working at the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon at the moment, which is handy as it’s just down the road (and hill) from where we live. This week, we went to see Adrian Lester take on the lead role in Cyrano de Bergerac.

Those same themes of exclusion, loneliness and identity forged by others’ perceptions of physical attributes rather than the real person within were exposed in a fantastic production, breathtakingly captured and acted superbly by all of the actors, but especially Adrian.

The character’s inherent insecurity leads to an outwardly self-confident bravado that is not matched by a lifelong desire from within. A desire not to be different. Something that can never be the case.

Some politicians – elected by the people, for the people – bemoan the lack of white people on the streets of some of our cities and hide it behind words their well-paid advisors have suggested, such as ‘integration.’ Born in Birmingham to Jamaican immigrants, they would presumably include Adrian in this.

Adrian can leave the prosthetic nose in his dressing room at the end of each performance, but he can’t change out of the colour of his skin. Undoubtedly a genius, and yet, quite unfathomably, doubts remain.

He is as British as I am. What more can he do? What more should he have to do?

We remember them all, don’t we? During the years that have come between us, rather than just observing, as a child, I hope I have at least learned to question why people, who appear to be different, behave in the way that they do. What childhood diseases befell them; what adult experiences have subsequently shaped their lives?

What unsatisfied desires have condemned them to perhaps arrogance, even violence, toward others – in words and actions – or quiet self-loathing forged early in the twin furnaces of loneliness and anxiety?

Edmond Rostand wrote Cyrano de Bergerac in 1897. A neo-romantic, his fine words resonate just as readily today.

Unfortunately, there is too often a fine but uncrossable line between who we are and who we really want to be. It's great to celebrate difference, but so much harder to do if you find yourself already condemned by it.

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