Life with diabetes is far from Sweet Like Chocolate, as performer come DJ Paul O’Donnell explains in this unique show.
Mixing music, recorded interviews, and some questionable dance moves, Dia-Beat-Es explores what it is like to live with the condition both for Paul himself and for his family.
Diagnosed at age two explains that he has endured an estimated 61,000 pricks for testing and injecting as he spins Leona Lewis’ Bleeding Love, while referring to Norwich as the “East Berlin of Norfolk”.
He may have only been Djing for five months – or as Paul puts it, become the “Mozart of carbohydrates” – but he puts on an entertaining and informative show, mixing in the Eurythmics, Bee Gees, and a spectacularly inappropriate karaoke Afroman track.
He was supported in the Spiegeltent performance at this year’s Norfolk and Norwich Festival by the affectionately nicknamed ‘Sugar-free babes’, podium-dancing British Sign Language interpreters Andrea and Erin.
Together, the three are toe-tappingly fun throughout this intriguing and idiosyncratic show.
- The Norfolk and Norwich Festival continues until May 28, 2023.
