Harriet Madeley’s play is being shown at the Park Theatre next month

A ONE-WOMAN show about a journalist who discovered she had an incurable life-limiting condition at the Royal Free while interviewing people about death is being shown in Finsbury Park next month.

Harriet Madeley’s play, Outpatient, is billed as an explosive, autobiographical comedy that tells the true story of a “self-obsessed entertainment journalist” who “sets out to make her name interviewing dying people, only to discover she is also living on borrowed time”.

Ms Madeley was admitted to the hospital in Hampstead in 2018 with severe stomach pain at the age of 29. Scans revealed she had a chronic liver disease that can only be treated by a transplant.

She said: “The irony is that at the time I found out I had primary sclerosing cholangitis [PSC] I was actually interviewing people about mortality and then I discovered I had my own life-limiting condition.

“I was told on no account to Google the condition but of course I looked and found out that on average people live for nine to 18 years after diagnosis.

“I was very frightened and had to grapple with how to adjust my lifestyle, with the knowledge that there really wasn’t a lot of information out there as to whether changing my diet or cutting out alcohol completely would actually make much of a difference.”

Ms Madeley had at the time of her diagnosis been researching patients with terminal illnesses for a documentary play she was writing.

PSC is characterised by inflammation and scarring of the bile ducts and is closely associated with inflammatory bowel disease, such as ulcerative colitis – a condition Ms Madeley was diagnosed with aged 14. Common early symptoms can include tiredness and late symptoms can include itching and jaundice.

Now 36 and having recently become a mother, Ms Madeley said she was “quite hopeful that it should progress” well with treatments, but “failing that I will go on to the liver transplant list”.

She said that the her care on the NHS at the Royal Free had “been absolutely amazing”, adding: “At the moment I just go for regular check-ups every six months and it is very reassuring to know I’m in the best possible place.”

Anyone affiliated to the Royal Free or affected by liver disease can get a discount to the show at the Park Theatre, Finsbury Park, from May 20 to June 7.