Oklahomaaarrghh!

By Ross Brewster

Last updated 09:17, Saturday, 10 May 2008

DON’T mention the old theatrical saying about “break a leg” to Lynda Lowth.

Lynda, one of the stars of Keswick Amateur Operatic Society’s spring show, Oklahoma, began the run at the Theatre by the Lake on two legs, but ended up well and truly plastered.

But it was going to take more than a broken kneecap to prevent Lynda, of High Side, Bassenthwaite, from seeing out her role as Aunt Eller right to the end of the five-night run at the lakeside theatre.

Within three hours of being in hospital, Lynda turned up for the evening performance because she was determined not to let anyone down.

She sustained the injury when she fell while out shopping in Cockermouth last Thursday. Lynda fractured her kneecap and injured her hand.

She was due on stage, playing one of the leading roles, that night.

And even if it meant going through the pain barrier Lynda decided she would carry on performing in the finest “show must go on” tradition.

She said: “We are only a small company so we don’t have any understudies. The whole cast had worked so hard to get the show on and I just couldn’t let them down.”

She was taken to Workington Hospital where an x-ray revealed her bad break and they rang through to Whitehaven so she could be tagged on to the end of a fracture clinic.

Lynda said: “I finally got home in plaster at 4pm, knowing I had to be on stage in three hours. It was probably the adrenaline that got me through that first performance.”

When the production team realised what had happened they arranged a wheelchair and an announcement was made to the audience.

The plucky actress even managed to do some of her final performance on Saturday without the wheelchair, using a zimmer frame to get round the stage.

Lynda said: “I had started the show’s run on two feet and I was determined on the final night I would end it that way. The cast were all great, helping as much as they could, but I must admit by the last night I was exhausted and had managed to catch a cold into the bargain.”

Lynda had to go back to the fracture clinic on Thursday and it is still not known whether she will need an operation on her knee.

To make matters worse, she should have been on holiday in Vienna this week – a treat she and her husband had booked to mark the end of the show.

Now family members will go instead and a philosophical Lynda said: “We can just go later in the year and the weather has been so good here I have been able to sit in the garden.”