On looking for information
on the net about our host for the art show, I came across this article from the
Evening Times from the end of March. When
I first started at Revive I watched a documentary Alison made about her MS and
how it’s had an impact on her acting career, to help me understand more about
how the condition affects the people that use our centre. Her story showed someone who has experienced
loss due to their MS, but who is determined to carry on doing what she
loves. I was delighted when she took an
interest in helping me with the art show, and I very much look forward to
seeing some of her dazzle at the art show preview!
Alison Peebles won’t let her
10-year battle with MS stop her taking on tough acting challenges
Award-winning actress Alison
Peebles is one of the best known performers in the business, from appearances
in the likes of Taggart, High Times and Braveheart to a lifetime of stage roles
such as Lady Macbeth.
But right now she’s facing
one of the biggest challenges of her career.
Alison is set to play a nun
in John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt, a story set in the Sixties, but which is
highly topical in that it examines the issue of priests and paedophilia.
It’s a demanding role for
Alison, in that it features verbal battles between Alison’s Sister Aloysius and
Father Flynn, a compassionate and gifted priest, who is deeply suspicious of
her -- even though she has no evidence against him.
“It’s a fabulous play,” she
says. “It’s all about swithering, with the audience not sure whether or not the
charismatic priest has had a relationship with the boy whom he takes under his
wing.
“But at the same time you
wonder about her motives, because he represents the modern church and she’s a
traditionalist. Does she have an agenda?”
But Alison’s powers of
resilience and stamina are being tested way beyond the realms of endurance of
most performers. She’s been suffering from primary progressive MS for 10 years
and currently is dependent upon a walking stick.
“I do get tired and of
course the fatigue affects your concentration and your memory,” she admits.
“But luckily because I’ve
been in the business for so long, I can call on the adrenalin to get me through
performances. Although there is a price to pay for that.”
She smiles: “Once the play
is over I’ll probably collapse. Yet, while I’d love to get away to the sun to
lay down, I love sunshine but I can’t stand the heat. It makes you feel so
tired.”
There isn’t a trace of
self-pity in the 55 year-old’s voice. On the contrary, she’s upbeat. Her glass
is three-quarters full. That’s in spite of MS causing her to fall over
regularly.
“I cracked my head open a
couple of weeks ago,” she recalls, as if she were talking about breaking a
fingernail. “I was in my kitchen and I hit the kitchen cupboard hard, and blood
poured down my face.”
Alison is fairly sanguine
about her illness, which first manifested itself in 1999 when she began falling
over and developed pins and needles. A year and a half later she was diagnosed.
“I remember saying to the
doctor ‘But other doctors have told me I don’t have MS’. And he said, ‘Oh,
you’ve definitely got it. Either that or something worse.’ I just burst into
tears at the news.
“Now it certainly means that
you can’t be spontaneous. Your world closes in, and if I’m working, well you
don’t have a social life at the end of the day. But my friends are great,
they’re really supportive.”
She says she fully expects
to end up in a wheelchair. “There’s an inevitability about it,” she says. “I
get by on the stick, but ...”
Yet, part of her believes
that doctors will find a treatment for MS. It’s a question of time.
“I’ve been on the websites,
looking at possible treatments and I think doctors will get there with the
problem, but in the meantime, you wait. I do try to remain positive, although I
don’t know how much of that is denial. I just want to get on with my life.”
She adds: “I’ve got a friend
who was diagnosed at the same time and since then she’s shut herself away. But
working keeps me going, it gets me up in the morning.”
Alison loves to involve
herself in good work such as Doubt.
“Oh, yes,” she says, the
enthusiasm in her voice audible. “It’s the sort of play that you know will have
the audience talking at the end. ‘Did he do it? Does she have a secret motive?’
“The topicality probably
leans the audience against the priest. But the audience will also be aware that
because it’s set in the Sixties, and in a school where Sister Aloysius has no
real power, she can’t go to the Bishop and say she suspects the priest. At that
time, no one would listen.”
Alison, who directed the
recent touring production of The Steamie, will turn her hand to directing once
again in the autumn where she will take on a play by Louise Welch and Zoe
Strachan. And she’s set to embark on a writing project.
“I wish I was a better
writer,” she muses. “I’d love to have that talent, the chance to be at the
beginning of the creative trail.”
If she were a “talented”
writer, what sort of part would she write for herself?
“Easy,” she says, smiling.
“A woman with MS who’s a detective, with a dirty raincoat, a bit like Columbo.
And an old classic car. And even though she’s got a walking stick she’s very
clever and powerful. That would do for me.”
Doubt has now finished, but Alison does have another play coming out in September in Glasgow, watch this space for details!
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