Casualty Star Treads The Boards For Safety At Dounreay

1st November 2010

Casualty star Ronnie McCann is helping workers at Dounreay stay out of real-life accident and emergency units.

The actor, who appeared 43 times in the BBC series as nurse Barney Woolfe, has been treading the boards as part of European Safety Week at the site of Britain's biggest nuclear decommissioning project.

He plays the part of an oil rig supervisor in the dramatisation of a real-life accident that claimed the life of an offshore worker nine years ago.

Hundreds of workers involved in the Dounreay clean-up have attended the two-hour production in the site's lecture theatre.

The Mousehole explores the safety culture on the rig and engages the audience around tell-tale warning signs that preceded the accident.

He stars alongside another Scots actor, Simon Murray, whose credits include the Ken Loache film My Name Is Joe and Irish actress Annette Tierney, who works for the show's producers, London-based AKT Productions.

The company was hired by Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd to deliver six performances of The Mousehole during European Safety Week.

John Deighan, a trade union safety rep with DSRL, says theatre-based learning can be a very effective way to communicate messages about safety to workers at Dounreay carrying out hazardous tasks.

"It's a dramatic recreation of real events that lead to someone's death on an oil rig but the lessons learned resonate in any hazardous workplace," he said.

"I'm very pleased the company at Dounreay supported the unions when we suggested staging the event here as part of European Safety Week.

"It's another way to get the message across about the sort of culture we need to foster if we're to maintain high standards of safety around the hazards here."

Ronnie headed to Dublin immediately after his last performance at Dounreay to resume filming for the Irish television soap Fair City, in which he plays the part of Glaswegian villain Ritchie Lennon.

His other credits include parts in Eastenders, Taggart, Judge John Deed, the Royal and The Bill, in which he played DS John Hanlson.

Simon meanwhile is heading to Shanghai for his next role in theatre

Photo
Ronnie McCann (front left) and Simon Murray (front right) with Annette Tierney (left), DSRL audit and safety manager Graeme Dunnett (centre) and trade union safety rep John Deighan (right).