'I was given half an hour to call loved ones': Barra Fitzgibbon's covid-set play
Katherine White in Patient: Soldier, a covid tale coming the Cork Arts Theatre as part of its nationwide tour.
“I think you’re going to be a statistic,” said a paramedic to Irish man, Barra Fitzgibbon, in a London hospital where he was admitted with symptoms of covid in March 2020.
The paramedic was dressed “like an astronaut” says Fitzgibbon. Fortunately, he didn’t become the kind of statistic the paramedic had in mind but was the first covid ICU survivor in the UK.
Fitzgibbon, aged 55, who lives in Lewisham and works in higher education for the Bloomsbury Institute, wrote a blog about his surreal stay in hospital which saw him in an induced coma for four days. He was in ICU for nearly two weeks.
That blog, which he wrote when he got home, became a play, which was a hit in the West End and is coming to Cork as part of a national tour.
It is described as a “love letter” to the UK's health service, set in an overwhelmed hospital that is like a battlefield but also a site of absurdity and even moments of comedy.
Fitzgibbon had never written anything before. But he felt compelled to put his experience down on paper, encouraged by one of the consultants, who said to him: "Barra, there’s something in this. I don’t know what it is but you’ve got something to tell about this and if you can, tell the truth about what we have gone through and get it out there."
While watching a covid press briefing on TV, Fitzgibbon claims it was all lies. “They were saying that everybody who was getting covid was old. They weren’t. Everybody was in their forties in the ICU I was in.”
Fit as a fiddle before he became ill, Fitzgibbon was used to cycling 16 miles, commuting to and from work. He developed a tickly cough and after four or five days, was struggling for oxygen. Ireland had locked down, but in the UK, people were still socialising in pubs, and washing their hands.
“I’m not sure where I got covid but it probably was in that social sphere. There was no knowledge about the thing. We knew Italy and China were in trouble.
"When you dialled for an ambulance in the UK, you were asked if you had travelled abroad. When I said I hadn’t, I was told I couldn’t have covid. It took a day or two for that rule to change.”
By the time Fitzgibbon got to hospital, he had double pneumonia and sepsis. “I was given half an hour to call family and loved ones. I spoke to my wife, Jen, and my kids, Jacob and Robyn on a WhatsApp video call.
"It was extraordinary. I was trying to have a conversation and trying to say ‘goodbye.’ I went into full dad mode, telling the kids [then in their teens] how to live their lives and be strong. I remember Jacob saying ‘Well dad, a 60% chance of living is better than 50%.’ We had a bit of a giggle through our tears at that.”
When Fitzgibbon woke up, he was hallucinating while experiencing reality at the same time. One of the hallucinations, that of talking to a doctor who was the grim reaper in Fitzgibbon’s addled state, drives the narrative of the play.
It’s a one-person show, with six characters, played by established actor and playwright Katherine White who has relatives in Cork. White also co-wrote the play. Fitzgibbon knew her from acting workshops that he organised at work.
Initially, Fitzgibbon directed the play, another first for him. It is now directed by Daniel Clarkson, an Olivier Award-nominated director.
At Q&A sessions after performances of people express their gratitude to the team for giving them the play to process the pandemic.
“There is a warrior story too, to be able to look back on this thing and find some positivity from it while being respectful of the tragedy and horror of covid....The NHS would have collapsed without the superheroes working for it, often doing 16-hour shifts.”
Fitzgibbon says that when he visits the hospital, the first thing the ICU staff ask is how the play is doing. “There’s something there for those healthcare workers. Isn’t it great that this play has come out of it? They have roared laughing at their depiction in the show.”
Fitzgibbon has made a full recovery and is back cycling. His wife notes that he falls asleep in front of the television more than he used to. But apart from that, he is well and happy that he got a play out of what could have ended in tragedy.
- is at the Cork Arts Theatre on May 20-23, as part of a current tour that also includes Civic Theatre, Tallaght, until May 1; Draiocht Theatre, Blanchardstown, May 7; Watergate Theatre, Kilkenny, May 14; St John's Theatre Listowel, May 16; Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray, May 26. See corkartstheatre.com
