A mini-musical written by Humphrey Carpenter to explore "the funny side of Parkinson's disease" is to be staged for the first time in Oxford.

Shake It All About was one of the last projects the broadcaster and author had been working on before his death two years ago.

Already in the grip of the disease himself, the 58-year-old decided to employ humour to highlight the toll Parkinson's takes on sufferers.

"Have you had enough of stand-up comedy?" he had said, "Well this is fall down comedy. I'm allowed to make jokes abut Parkinson's disease because I've got it. And believe me, a lot of it is very, very funny."

Comedian and presenter Michael Palin will appear in the fundraising evening at the Oxford Playhouse on Sunday, March 18, when Shake It All About will be performed as Humphrey Carpenter intended it.

The evening will be hosted by broadcaster Libby Purves and Channel 4 news presenter and Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University Jon Snow. Barbara Thompson, the internationally acclaimed saxophonist will also be appearing and talk about having Parkinson's herself.

The event will raise money for the Playhouse and Dipex, a website offering patients' accounts of illness. Mr Carpenter, a musician, biographer and children's author, left behind a series of songs and a draft script.

He had originally proposed performing it at the Oxford Literary Festival, of which he was patron. His plan was to rewrite words of well-known songs to fit his condition. Putting on the Ritz, for example is turned into Putting on Your Socks.

"It will be a celebration," he said, "of disabled parking badges, disabled loos, the usefulness of Parkinson's in getting you out of household chores and much more."

Performing a new select- ion from the outline script, supplemented with material from his diary, will be John Thirlwell, his friend and collaborator from his Radio Oxford days. Singing will be Jason Orbach, who sang on the Radio 4 documentary about Mr Carpenter.

Mr Carpenter, whose father was a Warden of Keble College and later Bishop of Oxford, lived in Farndon Road, North Oxford, yards from where he was born.

His widow Mari Prichard said: "The version for the Playhouse is the first performance in a theatre and it's the first time it will be done live as Humphrey intended it."

For tickets, priced at £20, call 01865 305305.