The case of the stuck door (The Departure Aria, winners of the Best in Show Award

by Nitta
Jan Uzzell and Min Lacey won the Best in Show Award at the 2010 Maskerade in a dazzling double act, performing the Departure Aria (“Questa maladetta...”) from Maskerade!
I talked to them after the photo call, in a corner of the hall, with conventioneers still coming over to congratulate them and take more pictures.

- It was Jan’s idea – says Min -, she and her music teacher put the character together. We wanted to fit me in as well, and first we thought of a dwarf, then we settled by Walter Plinge.
- The idea came after the last Con – continues Jan – when we saw how much fun the Maskerade was, and we thought: what could we do? We tried to find a minor character and build on that. Because I sing we chose Maskerade as theme, and we were carrying on Terry’s idea: a 17-stone female pretending to be a 17-year-old girl. We wanted the costume to be as over the top as possible.

I asked whether she was a professional singer.
- No, I enjoy singing but I’ll not be a professional. I did singing at school, then I found myself a teacher and now I am a grade 8 singer at the London College of Music.
- Where did you find a fitting music for your act?
- the song was purpose-written by my music teacher who is also a composer on his own right – but he never heard about Terry before, so we had to explain him about the character and the novel.

The pair are both long-time Discworld fans (about 20 years in Min’s and 16 years in Jan’s case); it’s Jan’s 3rd and Min’s 6th Convention. Among Min’s favourite characters are Death, Gaspode, the Librarian – “the standard ones I think” she says. Jan’s favourite is Granny as “she’s so true to form, a beautifully written character, she does everything right”. Oh, and Min was on Mastermind recently, answering Discworld questions.

At this point two fans came up to congratulate them and were discussing the lyrics. They thought the captions held up by Walter were an own translation – whereas they were from the novel, word by word. Jan started to quote the Italian version, and to help her memory she did so singing softly– giving a second encore to the surrounding people.

I asked how they felt about their success. Jan: “It doesn’t feel real yet. I have to phone my husband to tell him about it.”