An Asylum on Every Corner
The following is an excerpt from the libretto of this musical which premiered at the Edinburgh Festival in August 2006.
Slapstick music. Canned laughter. Canned applause. Marjory enters in the style of a stand-up comedian.
Marjory Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. In the everyday scheme of things, you go about your business, you lead a normal life, you’re average. I’m sorry to break it to you but you are. You do what you do and you’re neither too happy nor too sad. Just somewhere in the middle. So can someone please explain why mentally ill people are always treated like they are completely insane? Is that the middle ground between bonkers and bats? Or having a screw loose and being unhinged? Let’s take ‘mentally well’ on one end, shall we, and ‘mentally unwell’ on the other. Most people fall in the middle – not purely sound of mind but not stark staring mad either. So in the continuum of lunacy as it were, perhaps I might be ‘madder’ than you. In some respects. But if you’re taking anyone past the halfway mark as insane, then you’d be locking up a lot of people who profess to be normal. Normal, what on earth is that about? Who wants to be normal? It’s the usual, the dull, the uninspired. That which doesn’t offend the norm.
MUSIC CUE: BELIEVE THAT, BELIEVE ANYTHING
If normal is the centre of the scale, place me anywhere you like but there. I’d rather be mentally ill and interesting, thank you very much. Society can remain offended.
Marjory exits as Samuel enters, with a skip in his step.
Samuel
There’s a purple goblin sitting on my shoulder
A leering leprechaun atop my head
An incubus is swinging on my earlobe
A little devil cuddles me in bed
There’s a neon vapour hovering above me
A screaming banshee racing round the hall
The eyeballs of my late great aunt are bouncing on the floor
A torso’s doing cartwheels up the wall
Believe that, believe anything
The world is flat, the moon is made of cheese
Believe that, believe anything
The Eiffel tower’s for sale so are these magic beans
A schizophrenic’s nothing but a Jekyll and a Hyde
If you believe that then you might as well believe anything
A minotaur is steaming up my window
The chandelier’s a squid that’s in disguise
The soul of Ghandi has possessed my mattress
The birds upon my ledge are Russian spies
A ball of crimson fire flits on the ceiling
The floor recites an old Egyptian curse
A hairy hand is skating round the skirting
A faceless dwarf is sitting on a hearse (right there)
Believe that, believe anything
They’re photographing fairies down the road
Believe that, believe anything
Crop circles are a transgalactic code
Believe that, believe anything
The Loch Ness Monster’s come in from the cold
Believe that, believe anything
Spaghetti grows on trees and all that glitters is gold
A schizophrenic’s two personas living in one mind
If you believe that then you might as well believe anything
They’ve taken gullible out of the dictionary, you know?
Samuel exits.
