In the spring of 1995 I was studying for my A-levels in Cambridge, along with my best friend, Kate. For her final art exam, Kate wanted to create a male torso in the style of a classical sculpture, which she would present along with her written assignment on the male nude. She asked if I’d be the model and I, of course, agreed – what teenager wouldn’t be flattered at the prospect of being immortalised as a Greek god?
We decided to make the cast in the garden of Kate’s family home. Wearing just my Y-fronts and a pair of Mickey Mouse socks borrowed from Kate’s dad, along with a layer of baby oil, I lay down as Kate finished mixing the fine casting plaster, which she then poured from my neck to my ankles.
As it ran into my pants, perhaps I should have been concerned that Kate had used baby oil as a barrier rather than Vaseline or clingfilm, but I was under the impression she had read up on the process and trusted her completely. In retrospect, I suspect she’d tossed the book aside halfway through the preface.
As the first layer dried and Kate liberally applied a second I started to feel uncomfortable. It was a warm day, but under the plaster I felt as if I was being cooked. I told Kate, who started working faster, but the discomfort quickly became intolerable. “I want to get out,” I insisted. Kate wiped her hands. “All right,” she said. “You can get out then.” That’s when I realised I was trapped.
It wasn’t just that the plaster had already set hard, but, due to the lack of a barrier, it was also gripping every hair on my body. Even the slightest movement resulted in eye-watering torture, further exacerbated when Kate tried to free me with a hammer and chisel. Next up was boiling water, which failed to penetrate the hard shell and only increased the rate I felt I was broiling at. I fought not to panic, but it was horrible to feel so helpless.
My distressed cries attracted the attention of our friend Ed, who happened to be walking past the house. Ed suggested phoning for an ambulance, which we did, but two fire engines turned up as well. One of the firefighters arrived brandishing a camera, and he took a photo of the local fire chief pointing and laughing as Ed helped two of his crew manhandle me out of the garden. In the end, it took six people to carry me down a narrow alleyway to the ambulance – agony, but I was relieved when a plan to winch me over the roof of the house was abandoned.
A small crowd greeted me at Addenbrooke’s hospital – more doctors and medical staff than seemed strictly necessary, and more cameras, too. I was given laughing gas, which at least meant I was able to join in with the general sense of hilarity as hospital staff tore the plaster from me in what felt like the most aggressive full-body waxing imaginable – I think at one point they might have used hammers.
Afterwards, I was given a gown and a pair of scissors and sent to tidy my most intimate areas in a hospital toilet, which led to some startled responses from other patients who walked in on me. By then, I really didn’t care.
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Though feeling tender, I went out with friends that night to toast my freedom. The mood was celebratory, but at one point the delayed stress of the day’s events overwhelmed me briefly and I had a little cry. A neighbour passed on the story to the local paper, and from there it quickly got picked up by the national media, with many stories featuring the photo taken by the firefighters.
Back then, I wanted to be an actor, and I’d had a tiny speaking part in Absolutely Fabulous that I perhaps overstated when speaking to journalists. As a result, reports went out with headlines like Absolutely Plastered and Badly Cast.
I appeared with Kate on Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast, where one of Antony Gormley’s assistants gave her advice, and a US production company even filmed a re-enactment – assuming Cambridge was too obscure for an American audience, they showed me being pushed across Trafalgar Square in a wheelbarrow.
Nowadays, I play guitar in aband, and there’s been talk of perhaps restaging the misadventure again for one of our music videos, if Kate’s up for it. We have remained friends – Kate went to the Slade School of Fine Art in London, and is now an establishedillustrator, so next time I shouldn’t have to remind her to use clingfilm.
As told to Chris Broughton
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