Maureen Lipman hosts celebrity night for Whittington Hospital patients
Published: 27 August 2010
by TOM FOOT
ACTRESS and writer Maureen Lipman and her celebrity friends are gearing up for a gala fundraiser to help elderly patients at Whittington Hospital.
She is staging a night to remember for the annual Care of the Older People Appeal. The event, at Highgate School on Sunday, will feature monologues from Ms Lipman’s soon-to-be-published book I Must Collect Myself performed by her “big-name friends”.
She said: “We are raising money so the hospital can take a more holistic view of old age. There is a difference between people allowing someone to live and letting someone sit around waiting to die.
“It’s about offering that extra mile – having someone there to ask them to join in and do some poetry or art or whatever it is. It’s about improving the quality of people’s lives.”
Ms Lipman said she had no idea how the night would go. “It’s all been thrown together,” she admitted. “But that’s what often makes for the best nights. The monologues are mostly from a bunch of angry women. Tracy Ann Oberman is playing an Australian mammographer who X-rayed my breasts.”
Ms Lipman now lives in Paddington, having moved from the Whittington catchment area. She said: “I have been there many times – with broken bits and bobs. The Whittington is a good cottage hospital. We need to keep fighting for it.” Seats for the event are running out. To book, call 020 7288 5983.