Actress Sheridan Smith has opened up about what she calls her ‘meltdown,’ crediting it to ‘double-grieving.’
The Black Work star, 44, had been cast in the 2016 West End adaptation of Funny Girl when a performance of the show was cancelled after only fifteen minutes.
Reports from the show then emerged that Smith had been slurring her words and losing her balance on stage – cited as ‘technical difficulties’ when producers made the decision to pull the plug.
She was also hitting headlines at the time for reportedly missing curtain calls and accusations of alcohol abuse.
The Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps star eventually took a leave of absence from the show due to ‘stress and exhaustion’.
Nearly a decade on, and she has reflected on this time in her life, including the profound sense of grief which ultimately led to her ‘meltdown.’
In a new interview with The Times, Smith has shared how she was suffering from ‘double-grieving’ at the time, due to the recent diagnosis of her father, Colin Smith, with cancer.
Her 18-year-old brother, Julian, had previously died of the same disease when she was eight.
Her father died at the end of 2016, with his daughter close by during his final days.
Smith has now returned to the stage for her leading role in the play Woman In Mind – in which she plays a woman suffering a breakdown after a blow to the head.
‘I don’t ever want to do an easy part or something safe,’ Smith said of playing lead character Susan.
‘And I can relate to it — because I’ve been there myself, I guess. It’s nice, when you’re out the other side, that you can bring all those elements that you felt at the time.’
Referring to the incident in 2016, Smith continued: ‘It’s reclaiming it because after what happened… I didn’t ever want it to get out so publicly.
‘You’re embarrassed. I felt ashamed, and I still sometimes feel it, like, “Oh, I wish that part of my life hadn’t happened.”‘
‘But it did. It’s like my tattoos. Oh, God, I wish I didn’t have them, but I’ve got them now.’
Following the Funny Girl incident, Smith attended the TV Baftas in 2016 – hitting rock bottom after being the target of a joke by host Graham Norton.
Norton joked during the ceremony: ‘The sooner we begin, the sooner we can have a couple of drinks. Or, as they say in theatrical circles, a couple of glasses of technical difficulties.’
Having been hit hard by the remark, Smith decided to stop taking the anti-anxiety medication she was on that night – unaware of the dangerous consequences that doing so would entail.
‘I was so humiliated,’ she said, on the 2020 documentary Sheridan Smith: Becoming Mum.
‘It’s a room full of your peers, people you want to work with or have worked with. That night, for me, was like the final straw before my brain totally went off the deep end.’
She then suffered multiple seizures and was rushed to the hospital.
‘It’s a miracle she did (come),’ said Smith of the friend who came to her aid on that fateful night.
‘It’s like someone was looking out for me because what I didn’t realise is that if you stop these tablets abruptly, you seizure.’
Of Norton’s comments and her subsequent seizure, Smith told The Times: ‘That was no one’s fault. That was just on me. I was in a bad state at the time.
‘But I think you’re right, it maybe wouldn’t happen now. It is a bit kinder now.’
Following this incident, Smith moved back to the countryside to recover and was there when dad Colin died.
‘I feel the best I’ve ever felt right now,’ she said in another interview with The Times last year.
‘I’m playing someone having a breakdown, and I’m managing it. I’m leaving it all on the stage and not actually having one in real life so I’m happy.’
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