Damian Lewis nearly fainted on stage after bursting ear drum hours before performance

Soldering on: Damian Lewis and co-star Sophie Okonedo
Dave Benett
Robert Dex @RobDexES6 April 2017
The Weekender

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Damian Lewis revealed he almost passed out on stage last night after perforating his eardrum hours before performing his new West End play.

The Billions actor said he was left in “tremendous pain” and was ordered by producers to see a doctor before he went on stage in the new production of Edward Albee’s The Goat, Or Who Is Sylvia?.

Lewis said he fell ill after catching an “awful cold” that was passed round the cast and crew, including co-star Sophie Okonedo, that perforated his eardrum and left him partially deaf.

He told the Standard: “So I went to an emergency doctor and he had a look and said, ‘You’ve got a great big hole in your ear drum.’”

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After the performance, Lewis said he had been “high as a kite on performance-enhancing drugs, which luckily aren’t illegal in the theatre, but I’ve got tremendous pain in my right ear at the moment because of the pressure.

“There was one point in act three where I had to hold a chair because I was going to pass out and I had to stoop down to pick up a ruined painting. When I came up from there I thought I was going to pass out so I held on to a chair.”

Lewis, 46, plays a high-flying architect whose life falls apart when he falls in love with a goat. He revealed he only took the role after talking to veteran actor Jonathan Pryce, who played it in the West End more than a decade ago.

He said: “I normally have a rule that if I’ve seen something done so well I don’t do it and it’s been done.

“But I called Jonathan Pryce and I just asked him whether the play was nourishing, sustaining or was it a one-trick pony.

"He just said, ‘No, it was the most discussed play I’ve ever been a part of and it was endlessly sustaining and nourishing and rewarding to do’, so I decided to do it.”

He said Albee’s dark comedy, first performed in 2002, dealt with timely themes.

He said: “It can sound trite but there is a real discussion about tolerance obviously with our treatment of immigrants and Trump’s treatment of everybody so I think it’s a play about tolerance, what is acceptable, what is transgressive, what isn’t.”

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