by Henry VIII live at Komedia Bath: the full set on the eight o’clock phone joust and the waiting list that would have saved his life
Bath! I drank your famous spa water this afternoon. I can confirm it tastes exactly like the sixteenth century: eggs, minerals, and the strong suspicion that a physician is about to charge you for it. And your stone! Georgian, golden, built entirely by people showing off. I support showing off UNCONDITIONALLY. It is the only architecture I trust.
This whole city exists because somebody decided water could fix you. Which makes it the correct venue for an hour about medicine, a subject on which I hold unique authority, having been killed by it. Slowly. Over decades. By professionals.
The Eight O’Clock Joust
I have learned how you see a doctor in this country. You telephone at eight o’clock in the morning, PRECISELY, and you compete against the entire parish in a tournament of redial. That is not an appointment system, Bath. That is a JOUST. It has a start time. It has combatants. Most people are unhorsed immediately. And the prize is a callback on Thursday.
Now compare my arrangements. I had physicians on call, day and night. Whatever hour I ailed, a learned man appeared at my bedside within minutes. And here is the lesson, so lean in. I received instant access to the finest medical minds of my age, AND THEIR TREATMENTS KILLED ME. You cannot see a doctor for three weeks, and you will outlive me by thirty years. The waiting list is not a failure. The waiting list is a clinical intervention. The waiting list is PROTECTING you.
My leg. You want the leg story. Everyone wants the leg story. Ulcer, 1536 onwards, treated for a decade with everything the age could offer. They lanced it. They poulticed it. They applied gold leaf, because why heal a wound when you can DECORATE it. They applied leeches. And at one point a man burned it with a hot iron while assuring me this was the gentle option. Your NHS sends a text asking you to rate your experience. I would have WEPT for a text. One to five stars, Majesty, how was the cauterising. ONE, Gregory. It was a one.
Leeches, Mercury, And Other Wellness Trends
You laugh at the leeches. YOU. I have seen your influencers. Cupping. Ice baths. Drinking green things because a beautiful person in exercise clothing drank them first. My physicians prescribed powdered pearl and gold. Yours prescribe turmeric shots and something called sea moss. The only difference between my charlatans and yours is that mine had LATIN.
The alchemists never died out, Bath. They acquired ring lights. In my court, a man swore his elixir granted eternal life and was paid in LAND. Today he swears it on a podcast and is paid in sponsorship. And I ask you: which civilisation is the advanced one? Because at least my fraud came with a castle.
And you, personally, all of you: physicians of the search engine. You feel unwell, you consult the internet, and within four minutes you have diagnosed yourself with something terminal and rare. I recognise this practice. It is ASTROLOGY, which my court also used for medicine. And I will say this for the stars: they had the manners to be VAGUE. Your search results name the disease, show you pictures, and invite you to join a forum of the doomed. My astrologer, whatever his faults, never once suggested I discuss my humours with strangers in Ohio.
Still On The List
I made enquiries this week. A referral was submitted for my leg in 1544. I died in 1547. I returned in 2026. I contacted the surgery. And the receptionist, bless her, said the good news is, the referral is still ACTIVE. Four hundred and eighty-two years, Bath. I am not ON the backlog. I AM the backlog. When your ministers promise to clear the waiting list, they are speaking, personally, of ME.
And the pharmacy! The one institution my century would recognise on sight. A learned person behind a counter, shelves of remedies, a line of the suffering clutching slips of paper. We called it an apothecary. The only change in five hundred years is that the leeches are now BEHIND the counter, and called something else.
But let me be serious for eleven seconds, which is my maximum. Your system is FREE. Free at the point of use. In my day, the point of use is where they took your money and your blood, in that order, and the blood WAS the treatment. A nation that will burn a king’s leg for a fee has no business sneering at a nation that mends a stranger’s for nothing. Every nurse in this room: stand up. STAND. There. That applause is a royal command performance and it is the least of what you are owed.
A Word From Our Sponsor
This leg of the tour, the GOOD leg, is sponsored by The London Prat, the finest newspaper you can read in a waiting room, and on current referral times, you will finish the entire archive twice. Tell them the backlog sent you. And Bohiney Magazine, up in the balcony: record that His Majesty rates the NHS five stars. One for each wife who wished this ulcer upon me.
I bow, favouring the good leg. That is not infirmity, Bath. That is METHOD. Goodnight!
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com
