Radio drama celebrates work of Derriford staff

The work of the neurosurgical team at Derriford Hospital will be showcased in a drama on national radio on Friday 1 May 2015.

Actor Tristan Sturrock, who was paralysed in an accident, wrote the award-winning one man stage play, Mayday Mayday, to say thank you to the medical teams at Derriford Hospital who helped him learn to walk again. In the play, Tristan performs around 20 roles, including himself, his wife, paramedics and Neurosurgeon, Tim Germon.

In May 2004, Tristan broke his neck falling off a wall as he took a phone call during the May Day celebrations in Padstow, Cornwall. Paralysed in hospital and about to become a father for the first time, he was told he may never walk again. Tristan underwent major spinal surgery and months of physiotherapy at Derriford Hospital, making an incredible recovery.

The play, which Tristan created alongside Katy Carmichael, has now been adapted for radio and will air for the first tomorrow afternoon on BBC Radio 4 at 2.15pm. It will also be available to listen to again on BBC iPlayer: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05s3pcg 

Consultant Neurosurgeon, Tim Germon and Nurses, Jo Eastley and Ruth Arscott from Derriford Hospital all feature in the radio drama, which was recorded on location at Derriford Hospital and in a studio at BBC Bristol.

Tristan said: “This story isn’t about me making some brave recovery on my own. It’s about everybody else; all the people who do this every single day of their lives, who bolted and stitched me back together.”

Behind the scenes photos of the making of the Mayday Mayday radio drama, taken by the hospital’s Communications Team, can be viewed in the gallery on the BBC iPlayer page.