Comic actor's emotional revelation of assault after a show

Katherine Parkinson has revealed that she was once hospitalised following a brutal night-time assault while walking back from a show.

The IT Crowd star was knocked unconscious and had her nose broken in the attack, which happened when she was a stage actor before her television career began in 2005.

She became emotional as she related the traumatic memory for the first time publicly to writer Elizabeth Day on her How To Fail podcast today, and had to pause to compose herself. 

The assault happened when she and a co-worker were walking home from a theatre in an unnamed town outside London, where she could only afford ‘the cheapest digs’.

‘A guy who had previous form of doing this got into a bit of a disagreement with this colleague of mine,’ she said. ‘I said "leave her alone" and he knocked me out cold and broke my nose.

'He was, I think, immediately arrested. He certainly went to prison for ABH'.

However, she said she was made to feel class-based ‘shame’ about the incident as she was recovering in hospital.

‘There was a sense … I remember somebody saying to me, 'what were you doing [walking]? There was a sense that I had brought it on myself.’

Though from a middle-class background, Parkinson went to Oxford University where she found herself among posher contemporaries –and said she was ‘still hanging around my university friends’ at the time of the attack. 

She said they had made her feel like a 'cheaper commodity’ – such as offering lifts to other members of their social circle rather than her –  ‘when, you know, I was just as vulnerable.’

‘I think it's good with hindsight to acknowledge it and acknowledge the legacy of something like that,’ she told Day. ‘Because what I have found is that I'm really neurotic when it comes to my daughters about walking anywhere on their own.'

She said she hadn’t always seen herself as  victim of violence as she'd had 'a sense of just getting on with it … I mean, my mother's generation, the things that they have tolerated and put up with. And I think there's a lot to be said for getting on with things.'

She added that although she hadn't had therapy, 'the wisdom of therapy, I think, has bled into our culture in a way I find quite helpful'.

Parkinson – who last week won a Bafta for her role in Here We Go –  had been helped by watching the comedy-drama I May Destroy You, based on Michaela Coel's own sexual assault.

'I did have quite a serious assault that had repercussions, I'm not going to be cross with myself for being a really neurotic mum' Parkinson concluded.

'I'm giving myself, now I'm 48, just a bit more licence to realise that your experience informs who you are… your recalibration in a world where I used to just feel so confident and sure. Unfortunately, a literal smack in the face changes you.

'I would say that I also remember in the 48 hours after that I experienced kindness. But I had a terribly messed-up face for a while and I did feel a judgement walking around. I carried on, I put an eye patch on and was on stage in a different city the next week. 

‘There was also an expectation back then. There was no counselling, no sense that the theatre, they weren't responsible, of course they weren't, but there was no real pastoral care.

'It was a bit embarrassing for people to see and I felt a judgment with this messed-up face from people that didn't know me, that I was a hard person that lived a hard life. And that couldn't have been further from the truth. So I think just talking about it is good.'

The actor, who was speaking to Day in order to promote her role  in Disney's comedy-drama Rivals, explained that she still regularly travels home late, alone, from theatres. And 'I have been more anxious in situations, I've gone straight to a very anxious place, when I wouldn't have done that previously'.

She had also had to properly explain to her husband, the Toast Of London actor Harry Peacock, the fear that all women have walking home alone at night. 'I always think you can empathise, but you don't know until you're actually this person with that person's vulnerabilities and experiences' she said. 

In January, the London Nightlight Taskforce recommended that the Tube should run later to ensure that both theatre workers and audiences are safer travelling home after a show.

Last year, London's Museum of Comedy hosted an event called Reclaim The Comedy Night, in which female comedians shared horror stories of being followed out of gigs or confronted in venues by aggressive punters. 

– by Jay Richardson

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Published: 20 May 2026