A MINI-MUSICAL written by the late 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 that the Oxford broadcaster and author had been working on before his death two years ago, aged 58.

Already in the grip of the disease himself, Mr Carpenter decided to employ humour to highlight the toll Parkinson's takes on its victims.

"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. And believe me, a lot of it is very, very funny."

The 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 Mr Carpenter intended it.

The evening will be hosted by the broadcaster Libby Purves and Channel 4 news presenter, Jon Snow, the chancellor of Oxford Brookes University. 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, the award-winning Oxford-based website offering patients' own accounts of illness.

Mr Carpenter, a talented jazz musician, biographer and author of the Mr Majeika children's books, left behind a series of songs and a draft script of his Parkinson's musical.

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

Performing a new selection from Mr Carpenter's 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 made about Mr Carpenter by his BBC colleagues.

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

Tickets are £20. Telephone 01865 305305.