Actor, singer and NHS Defender Steven Carne brings his musical comedy camp pain event SPECIAL MEASURES, to Hartlepool for a night of stories and songs from the frontline of the NHS campaign. It’s not every performer who can weave jokes, songs, economics and funding mechanisms into a cabaret but that was the challenge Steve set himself when returning to his theatrical roots planning the NHS Cabaret that is currently on the road in pubs, clubs and community centres.
Calling the show a collection of Anthems for Accidental Activists Steve tells his personal story of falling into the campaign community after he bumped into the DarloMums of 999 Call for the NHS on Twitter. After a 2 hour phone call he was helping to organise a Jarrow to London People’s March for the NHS in 2014. Over 20,000 people met in Trafalgar Square to greet the marchers at the climax of the 300 mile journey.
Since then he’s helped organise meetings with party leaders in the House of Commons, set-up campaigner networks, fell asleep in council meetings, donned forensics boilersuits to perform street theatre and been the subject of an award winning documentary.
Former West End performer Steve says: “No one in their right mind wakes up one morning and decides to be an NHS Campaigner. It creeps up and takes you over. Once you begin to see what is going on in our healthcare service you can’t stop yourself. And that’s what the show is about – my experience over the last four years working with some of the loveliest people and fighting some of the worst! It’s a bundle of laughs being an accidental activist!”
The show, which features songs from Sinatra to Lilly Allen to John Grant, is hosted by local campaign group Fighting 4 Hartlepool Hospital who are delighted to bring the show to Café One77 in York Road on 28th April 2018 – We have marched and rallied in the town…twice! We have attended regional demonstrations to help highlight the lack of services on offer to the residents of this town since the closure of A&E in 2011 and demanded we have them back. We have decided to host this event to invite members and residents to come along and find out more about what they can do to help.
Fighting 4 Hartlepool Hospital have been actively campaigning for many years and they know only too well what Steven is talking about.
Glen Hughes, administrator from the group said “When we found out about SPECIAL MEASURES we knew we wanted to bring the show to Hartlepool. Steve is really good at explaining things that don’t reach the news and in a way that people can understand. Campaigners around the country say how grateful they are for his dark humorous videos and graphics that have kept them inspired at times of feeling like giving up.”
Steve is also part of the #Justice4NHS Judicial Review – taking NHS England to court for their introduction of an Accountable Care Models contract which Steve says will radically change the NHS for the worse. He promises his explanation of the so-called “new models of care”, based on USA Medicare, will be both entertaining and just a little bit terrifying. The show will also raise money for #Justice4NHS Judicial Review and St Aidan’s Food Bank in Hartlepool.
The show promises some laughs, some tears and more importantly some ideas about what the public can do to protect their NHS from being taken from them