There’s no business like show business!
My fair city of Edinburgh is currently in the grip of the Edinburgh International Festival and Fringe. For those that don’t know, the city plays host to the world’s largest arts festival. Each August a bewildering number of plays, dance routines, comedy shows, musical extravaganzas, street performances are put on in a warren of tiny, damp, uncomfortable venues scattered around town.
Every year we’re subject to a vast range of performances, ranging from the truly brilliant and inspired to the truly awful and downright bizarre. And not being one to miss out on anything, I thought we could all club together, hire a venue and put on:
Diabetes: The Musical!
It would be brilliant and would chart the daily highs and lows of being diabetic in the modern world through the medium of cheery song and dance. And I’ll think you’ll agree, there’s no better medium for broadcasting information about life-threatening chronic conditions than cheery song and dance.
I expect some of us can carry a tune (though actually being able to sing is probably just an optional extra); I did a bit of theatre lighting and sound at school; and my wife is very handy with a sewing machine and could knock-up colourful costumes. So we’re sorted – all we need now are lyrics.
It’s early days yet, but here are a few rhyming couplets I’ve knocked out so far that could form the basis of some songs:
It’s morning and I’m feeling low
I’ve got a busy day and I hope I don’t hypo
My friends just say I’m just sweet
But without insulin I’m incomplete
It’s true that on the blog we’re sometimes outspoken
But that’s just because our pancreases are broken
Some people think it’s just an affection
But we’re dead without our daily injection
When I was high I used to be a grump
But that’s a thing of the past now I have my pump
So there we have it – further suggestions below in the usual place. I think with only a tiny bit more work we’re only one step away from a sure-fire five-star Festival hit!
Brilliant! Where can I audition?
I’ve written a couple of ditties for the inevitable sad bit of the musical, before the grand finale.
They’ve withdrawn funding for my CGMS
Without that my life is a mess
Damn and blast I’m only 2 mmol
Please hurry now and pass me some Dextrosol
Ah, you get a guaranteed place Alison – the privilege of office!
Some more couplets:
At my annual check-up I get congratulations
Because I haven’t developed any complications
Needles I don’t like, but it really makes me cringe
When I have to get out my ancient old syringe
Too expensive these nasty strips
I wish there were as cheap as chips
Hurrah. I’m in!
I won’t let diabetes get me down
I won’t live my life with a frown
With diabetes I won’t be beat
Even if I have rotting feet
Okay, I’m game, but only if we can add a Monty Python theme complete with coconuts and a holy grail. 😀
@Mark *Every* musical needs coconuts Mark, so they’re a given.
God: What are you doing now?
King Arthur: Averting our eyes, oh Lord.
God: Well, don’t. It’s just like those miserable psalms, always so depressing. Now knock it off!
This really should happen. I love it!!!
It *will* happen George. Nothing is stopping us.
Aside from any discernible talent that is…
@Tim I resemble that remark!
@Mark He he! 🙂
Grand idea. With a dose of Monty Python? Oh yeah!!
Great stuff.
One of your British diabetic brethren has already had a go: Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, with his smash hit, D-vita. Have you never burst forth with “Don’t cry for me, Euglycaemia” when up above 10 or down below 4?
(And MP’s Professor Ann(e) Elk could just as well be talking about the action profile of short-acting insulin when discussing the general shape of dinosaurs: thin at both ends with a lump in the middle)
I will be the choreographer – that’s a demand not a request!
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