West end sensation comes to Kilkenny for one night only!

The blog that became a West End sensation is coming to the Watergate Theatre in Kilkenny for one night only on May 14.

In March 2020, as the world braced itself for the unthinkable and entire nations shut down overnight, England stayed open for business.

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Shops bustled, pubs poured pints, and London’s restless pulse continued its familiar rhythm even as the early waves of something dark crept closer. It was in this surreal and uncertain landscape that Barra Fitzgibbon, an Irishman living in Lewisham, suddenly found himself face-to-face with the one adversary every human instinctively fears: the Grim Reaper.

What followed was a journey that would alter the course of his life, and unexpectedly, the landscape of contemporary theatre. Barra’s personal blog, raw, unfiltered, sometimes bleakly comic, documented his battle with acute illness and his days in ICU, suspended between life and death during one of the most chaotic moments in modern medical history.

Like many who kept personal records during that time, he had no intention of creating a work of art. He wrote to stay sane, to make sense of trauma, and to give friends and family a lifeline to his inner world when he was too weak to speak. Little did he know that five years later, those words would transform into Patient:Soldier, a mesmerising, darkly funny, and deeply human stage production that captivated West End audiences and sold out its entire run.

The play, whose story is rooted in chaos, courage and the unspoken emotions of a pandemic, stars award winning actor Katherine White.

Patient:Soldier is not simply a play about illness; it is a play about being alive. Barra’s experience unfolded during a period when the health service was under unprecedented pressure, corridors overflowing, medical teams stretched past breaking point, and families barred from visiting their loved ones.

Against this backdrop, the play captures the everyday heroism of clinicians, the terror and absurdity of isolation, and the strange humour that emerges in the midst of crisis. At its core, the play is driven by an unusual and powerful narrative choice: the story is told by the Grim Reaper himself. 

Through him, the audience witnesses a man’s will to live, even when the odds have crumbled. The play does more than dramatise Barra’s memories; it incorporates real audio recordings from ICU, conversations between doctors and Barra’s family that reveal the uncertainty of his condition, the fear in their voices, and the professionalism laced with compassion from the medical team monitoring him. It offers audiences something rarely experienced in theatre: an unfiltered window into human nature when everything hangs in the balance. Yet the play’s darkest moments often unfold with humour.

Conversations leap between Barra’s hallucinations, memories of home, imagined chats with loved ones, and, in true Irish fashion, scenes set in a pub, because even when the Grim Reaper is leaning over your shoulder, sometimes you still just want to order a pint and talk things out. Patient: Soldier will be performed in The Watergate Theatre on May 14.