Maskerade: What An Angry Medic Does In His Spare Time

Any medical student will tell you that life in med school is made a heckuva lot more tolerable if you do stuff other than study. Here in Cambridge, however, many students don't believe that, and hence proceed to travel directly from lecture theatre/lab to room/library and back to lecture theatre/lab the next day, having long ago trained their bodies not to require trivialities like food and sleep by simply recycling everything they eat. These students, might I add, are also irritating morons whom I hope will be shot by a disgruntled patient someday. But I digress.

I would like to add that I am most certainly not one of those patients. And the reason I've been updating so infrequently is because I have the honour of being in a play on next week. Terry Pratchett's 'Maskerade', part of the Discworld series of comedy/fantasy novels, is one of the most well-known of his works. Maskerade is a hilarious parody of Andrew Lloyd Webber's 'Phantom of the Opera'.


In both a shameless plug for the play, as well as an excuse for a blog post, I'm providing the blurb for the play, as well as several choice quotes from Terry Pratchett's masterpiece:

Some people think Opera is majestic and that the Opera House is a haven of culture in an otherwise profane and ignorant world. Other think it's just a lot of fat people singing in foreign. But no matter which opinion people have it's usually safe to say that they don't think Opera should generally involve killing people during the rehearsal process. But someone does...

The Opera Ghost is terrorising the Ankh-Morpork Opera House. Seamstresses are being sewn to the wall, the man who works the trapdoor has fallen through it and the Organ has been destroyed (much to the chagrin of the Orangutan who plays it).

Step forward three witches (every theatre has them) Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Perdita. Only one of them can smile, only one of them can think and only one of them can sing. In chords. The hope of the Opera House lies at their feet. But with a homicidal maniac running around they have their work cut out to get the show on. And then there's the problem of the anthropomorphic cat...

Pratchett has been credited with inventing the funniest fantasy series out there. Here are some enticing quotes from Maskerade which provide a glimpse into the man's comedic genius:

"What sort of person," said Salzella patiently, "sits down and writes a maniacal laugh? And all those exclamation marks, you notice? Five? A sure sign of someone who wears his underpants on his head. Opera can do that to a man."

Most people in Lancre, as the saying goes, went to bed with the chickens and got up with the cows. [footnote: Er. That is to say, they went to bed at the same time as the chickens went to bed, and got up at the same time as the cows got up. Loosely worded sayings can really cause misunderstandings.]

"There have been...accidents."
"What kind of accidents?"
"The kind of accidents you prefer to call...accidents."

The pre-luncheon drinks were going quite well, Mr Bucket thought. Everyone was making polite conversation and absolutely no one had been killed up to the present moment.

Maskerade is on next week from Tuesday till Saturday. Advance bookings can be made via e-mail. The play will be staged at the Fitzpatrick Theatre in Queens' College. For my readers not in Cambridge, fear not, for a full report shall be posted soon.

Coming up: The Cambridge Round-up, Week 6! Shudder.


"Actors," said Granny, witheringly. "As if the world weren't full of enough history without inventing more."