'Tat Man' Tony ready to play again - two months after nearly dying on stage
After nearly dying live on stage, actor and musician Tony Barrett is ready to face his public again – just two months later.
Tony, aged 67, from Longnor, Staffordshire, collapsed in front of an astonished audience in Brownhills during a performance with his band The Flaky Tarts.
A small part of a kidney stone had blocked his urethra and sent his body into a state of complete shock during the show at the Lamp Theatre.
Two members of the audience caught the multi-talented artist, who has been performing in his acclaimed one-man show ‘The Life and Times of the Tat Man’ since 2014, as he fell from the stage.
After being taken to hospital he survived, undergoing an operation, and is back on stage next weekend. He was in hospital for 10 days.
He said: “I had been feeling particularly unwell that day, I was cold and felt weak.
“We sit on stools throughout the show so it could have been worse but I was in severe pain. At the end of the show I just collapsed and two people in the front row caught me, somebody called an ambulance and the next thing I knew I was being taken to Royal Stoke Hospital.
“The staff there were absolutely fantastic, they saved my life.
“I was told that if I hadn’t been taken to hospital immediately, I would have suffered total organ failure and almost certainly would have died.”
Tony had been suffering from back pain, bleeding gums and had lost hair in the months before his collapse but was told by doctors that his condition, Mirabilis Sepsis, creeps up on a person slowly until it suddenly hits them if not treated.
Tony, who has been married to his wife Annie for 22 years, said the experience has left him eager to play on.
His comeback is on July 1 at Birchmeadow Centre, Broseley, Shropshire, and will be a performance of ‘The Life and Times of the Tat Man’.
He said: “I want to take on the world now, I really do. This has only made me want to play more, music and performing is what has pulled me through this.
“I know of people who have been performing for years who get ill and decide they want to stay ill. I am not going to do that, I want to play more than ever.
“What we have in life is precious and if you love doing something, you should do it as much as you can, because you never know when it could be taken away.”
