Aspiring comedian gets out of sick bed to meet his favourite stand-up

AN aspiring comedian who has been undergoing cancer treatment for three years says he “went to hell and back” to meet his favourite stand-up.

Lewis Goodall, 25, from Nettlebed, was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 2020 and has undergone four operations to remove the disease, which spread to his stomach, lungs and heart.

He was being treated at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London on the day he was due to meet Fern Brady and feared he would not be able to make it.

But thanks to the efforts of staff and members of his family, Mr Goodall was able to attend the HLTH is WLTH comedy gala at Henley Rugby Club to ask the comedian to sign a copy of her autobiography.

Mr Goodall, who is also autistic and has heightened sense to sounds, went outside for some air when he bumped into Ms Brady.

“I was genuinely starstruck,” he said. “Autism affects people in different ways but it makes me quite sensitive to sound and it was a lot louder in there than I had expected.

“The speakers were facing in my direction and I was distracted a lot of the time but I kept thinking, ‘This will be all worth it when I get to meet Fern’.

“I was trying to pull myself together when I ran into her and it made me forget all about it in that brief moment when she signed the book for me.

“When she asked me what to write, I said, ‘Write whatever comes to mind’ and when I read it afterwards she had said she was really glad to have met me because she had heard about my story and thanked me for making it there.

“She wished for me to get better soon. It was exactly what I was hoping for and more.”

Mr Goodall thanked the health practitioners who helped make his dream become a reality.

He said: “All the doctors and nurses knew that I wanted to see her that day, even though I was having treatment done, and they kept encouraging me to see it through so I could make it.

“It was more difficult than I realised going to the gig because I was feeling a bit uneasy and tired, so I basically went to hell and back that day to meet her. I’m glad I did.”

Mr Goodall said he had hit “rock bottom” when he was given his cancer diagnosis.

He said: “In a moment like that you panic and don’t really know what to do. I was at my lowest point. I remember it as clear as day, when they told me — I nearly fainted and felt so lightheaded. I didn’t know what to do, I was inconsolable.

“It was a really dark time in my life because I didn’t think cancer could affect people like me.

“It made me realise and
re-evaluate everything that was important to me and one day it suddenly hit me that if I was going to survive this then what was I going to live for?

“I realised I love to make people laugh and smile and it made me think of my favourite comedians, such as Fern, and if they could do it for a living, then why couldn’t I?

“I was so down and very sad but people like Fern enabled me to laugh again.”

Mr Goodall performed for doctors and nurses at Barts. “It was a lot of fun,” he said. “I was having a blood transfusion at the time and halfway through my set the machine that I was connected to suddenly started bleeping, which was its way of saying it was nearly done, but I wasn’t expecting that to happen.

“I stopped doing my set, looked at the machine and said, ‘I’ve never been heckled by a machine before’ and everyone was hysterical.”

Mr Goodall has undergone intensive chemotherapy since his diagnosis at Barts and the Churchill Hospital in Oxford.

He said: “It’s hard to explain but recovering from the treatment isn’t the hardest part, it’s the fact I can’t go anywhere.

“I live in the countryside and can’t do things I enjoy like walking, so knowing I can’t leave the ward, just staring at four walls, can be draining.”

His operations included one to remove “one of my boys”, as Mr Goodall puts it, due to a tumour, which took 13 hours, and two lung operations.

He said: “I have had surgery not just down there, but on both sides of my back which have left me with scars, as well as the one from my heart surgery, where they put a plastic clip around one of my ventricles.

“Funnily enough, they say the valve will live longer than I will, which is a strange prize.

“I’m trying to get comfortable with my body because for months after my operation, I didn’t know I had scars and didn’t have the courage to look.”

Mr Goodall feared he would die when he suffered a blood clot in his leg but then found the funny side.

He said: “I was enduring the worst pain you could ever imagine and I panicked and said, ‘Well, that’s it, I’m going to die here.’ I know it was a stupid thing to say but it made me realise how comedy can get you through it all.”

Mr Goodall, who studied at the Berkshire College of Agriculture, is being supported by his parents, George, 52, a painter and decorator and Joanne, 56, who works for Tesco.

He said: “My parents have been with me every step of the way but, despite that, there have been moments where it does get on top of me and I do feel quite lonely. One thing that does keep me down a lot of the time is thinking about my ex-girlfriend, Marci. I have been single now for seven years after we broke up before I left college.

“I want to find a new girlfriend and look for love again. After the pandemic and the diagnosis and being in hospital, even though I want to start dating again, I’m in no position to do so.

“All throughout my illness, people have been supporting me but I wish there was one special lady to reassure me and get me through it.”

Mr Goodall praised Ms Brady, saying she encouraged him to continue pursuing his dream and not let his illness stop him.

He added: “Fern is my favourite because she is relatable. A lot of comedians talk about subjects which you have experienced and can relate to but whenever she talks about things on stage it makes me so immensely happy and I realise that it’s not necessarily easy doing what I’m doing.

“Fern has made me feel a lot better about my illness, even the impossible.

“After meeting her it made me feel like I could do anything, which is pursuing my dream of being a comedian.”