Lyric Sheets

Scottish Opera has begun a five-month `opera and chips' programme by performing `The Magic Flute' at a Harry Ramsden's fish restaurant in Edinburgh

Opera and chips

Steamy in the restaurant

The evening's getting colder

They settled down to haddock

For Tristan and Isolde

As nobs came in

The yobs slouched out

Amidst the usual banter

The lead contralto

Guzzled down

A can of luke-warm Fanta

The sizzle of the fryer

A bleeping from the till

A humming from the freezer

Then Barber of Seville

The mushy peas went slushy

The cod got over-fried

A punter ordered scampi

And got The Bartered Bride

Soprano took a top note

A frequency too far

Which rattled forks on tables

And broke the gherkin jar

Someone squeezed a lemon

And Siegfried pursed his lips

Brunhilde made her entrance

Abandoning her chips

The manager enraptured

The customers all smiles

While Mozart and Puccini

Bounced off the grouted tiles

An ultraviolet gadget

Electrocuted flies

As people took the opera

Back from the suits and ties