Super Troupers

Little known fact about the DCP: there are a shocking number of ABBA fans. Yes, it is true. The daughters of the Darwin Correspondence Project are ABBA junkies. I discovered this fact one day when Samantha and I were deciding what movie to see. The choice was between “Prince Caspian” (my choice) and “Mamma Mia” (Samantha’s choice). I confess that I was a little surprised by Samantha’s choice, but then I remembered the cast, and figured Samantha was probably a big fan of someone in that cast. That week we decided on “Prince Caspian” because it starred a Darwin descendant and we were prepared to be all supportive of the Darwins. When the next week rolled around, Samantha and I decided to see “Mamma Mia.” I figured we wouldn’t have many takers, but we were wrong. Before lunch on the day of the movie, Shelley and Emma were prepared to join us and Liz ‘fessed up to seeing it two days before. So off we went—Shelley, Emma, Samantha and me.

We had so much fun at “Mamma Mia” that it didn't take long for the dirty confessions to flow. It wasn't long after that that the inevitable happened--talk of an ABBA night. Emma thought it would be a great idea to have everyone around for an boozy, singing, ABBA night. All caught up in the dancing queen moment, I enthusiastically agreed to this plan. However, it wasn’t long before I began to worry about this plan. I sort of hoped that Emma would forget about my ABBA enthusiasm, but she didn’t. You see, historians don’t tend to forget things. It kinda is their job to remember. Then the panic set in. I had absolutely no desire to spend part of my last week in Cambridge completely humiliating myself by singing ABBA in front of terribly accomplished and always very fashionable Emma. Humiliating myself in front of my loving and understanding friends is one thing, humiliating myself in front of the author of the textbook I've assigned my students is quite another. I suppose it wouldn't be so bad if we were all equally bad singers, but as it turns out Emma is a rather good singer. Sadly, I am not a good singer and my accomplishments include baking decent, Fin-friendly brownies in the shape of muffins. What I needed was a plan. In the absence of a plan, what I needed was Liz.

I shared my panic with Liz on our way to see “Get Smart.” Liz was trying to be comforting (although I know deep down she was wondering how I managed to get myself AND her into this ABBA/Emma situation), when the answer appeared before her. There, beside the list of prices for popcorn and hot dogs, was a poster for “sing-a-long Mamma Mia”—the answer to my prayers. Singing ABBA with a bunch of other people in a dark theatre seemed a lot less dignity shattering, comparatively speaking, than belting out “take a chance on me” all by my tone-deaf self in front of Emma.

With not a moment to lose, I sent an email inviting all the daughters of the DCP to sing-a-long “Mamma Mia.” If you happened to walk by the DCP office on the day of the big event, you stood a very good chance of hearing Shelley, Liz, and I singing ABBA to each other. Rumour has it, if you passed Emma with her MP3 player, you might even catch her humming a bit of ABBA to herself. As it turned out, not every devoted DCP ABBA girl was able to make the big night. One already had a date with David Tennant, another had to entertain family, a third had to catch a train, and a fourth was tragically taken out by a bad bike meets car door accident. The dedicated core—Emma, Liz, Shelley, me—waved our glow sticks and sang our little ABBA hearts out on behalf of all the daughters of the DCP.