It is common to say ‘Break a Leg’ when you wish an actor well but you don’t expect him to do it.

Damian McHugh, 45, broke an ankle, forcing Canterbury Players to change the dates of their production of Alan Ayckbourn’s Relatively Speaking.   The play, at Brook Road Methodist Church, Flixton, will move  from April 20  - 23 to May 11 – 14.

Damian, a team manager in social care, said:   “I’d like it to have happened when hiking in the Himalayas but it was at a party and I wasn’t even drunk.  I lost my footing.

“It was at my partner’s mum’s 80th birthday in Ireland on March 12.  

“I went to the hospital in Belfast where an X-Ray showed I’d broken my ankle in two places.

“They put an air cast boot on me so I could fly back to Manchester and the next day MRI put a cast on.

“I can’t attend rehearsals yet but have had plenty of time to learn my lines.”

The play is a 1960’s comedy with a cast of just four.   Damian plays Greg, Ginny’s partner.   She is more worldly wise than Greg and has a guilty secret or two concerning the opposite sex.

Damian said:   “I like the way Greg, who is quite naïve, interacts individually with each of the others.

“The more I practise the lines, the more I learn how his personality changes according to who he’s talking to.

“I appreciate Canterbury Players postponing the play for me.”

 *   Both existing ticket holders who want to swap dates and new purchasers should contact  0161 748 8403.