Cathy at the House of Lords

Cathy tour is now over, and it’s been quite an experience as we performed not only in theatres, but homeless hostels and many prisons too, including Wormwood Scrubs and Pentonville and the inmates there were amazing; wonderfully welcoming and keen to share their own life experiences with us.  The very last gig a few weeks ago I think reflects the diverse venues we have been touring to, as we were invited to perform the play at the House of Lords as part of an evening reception for the ‘Homes for Cathy’ charity.  Again the people there were moved by the play and we were made very welcome by the Lords and MP’s who had attended the event, and were later invited to ‘Strangers Bar’ for a few late drinks by the labour shadow housing minister, John Healey.  Can’t believe it’s all over; it was difficult to say goodbye to the cast and crew after so long, but a fantastic final outing for Cathy, and what a privilege to have been a part of it all.   Here’s some picture of the event – the cast and crew and John Healey too!

A couple of breaks!

There was a break in the tour of ‘Cathy’ during December when I unfortunately had a second break!  During a drunken moment at a local party I accepted a challenge to arm wrestle; something I’ve done a few times with varying success... however this time things didn’t go quite as planned and I ended up with a rather nasty broken arm – see picture!  Well of course it was my own stupid fault for taking part in the first place, but also rather stupidly I was kneeling at the table, so my opponent had a bit of an advantage and was always gonna beat me.  I felt things weren’t going well and was just about to call time on the whole endeavour when I heard a sickening crack and my arm was suddenly limp and was dangling in a pretty alarming manner.  The pain was excruciating, so an ambulance was called and off I went to hospital.  My first thought was ‘will I still be able to perform in the show in a few weeks time’, and with the aid of a sling which I wore for the first scene, thankfully the tour carried on and I didn’t let anyone down.  However, a few weeks later we were visiting a night club in Manchester after a late show and it had been snowing and the steps down to the entrance were wet and I slipped and fell on my arm and broke it again!  My arm is on the mend though now, but not quite so well knit together as I would have hoped.  But as you can see from the picture there is evidence of another break from some years previous – a metal plate, seven screws and six pieces of wire in my elbow from an injury on a building site where I was labouring.  I’m always doing stuff like this and Sarah remarked that life with me is never dull... Got to be more sensible in future though... but I did arm wrestle in my local pub with my left arm recently and won too!