A WOMAN is flapping her arms around on stage at Glasgow’s Websters Theatre, her face a rictus of exasperation. This is comedian Carina MacLeod, and she’s pretending to be struggling to get out of bed. The sold-out crowd is in stitches. But Gaelic-speaker MacLeod, Scotland’s only bilingual touring comic, isn’t making fun of the afflicted.

Well OK, she is – but it’s her who often finds getting up a challenge; her and half the audience here tonight.

Eighteen months ago Lewis-born MacLeod was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and osteoarthritis after enduring years of pain and multiple other symptoms, including chronic fatigue, allergies and problems with digestion.

A theatre and broadcast actor to boot, she began stand-up around five-and-a-half years ago. Her latest touring show is Fibro My Arth!, a raucous account of daily life managing the conditions. Both are largely invisible illnesses, giving little outward sign that the person is unwell. Though some of the folk here tonight need the help of crutches, it takes a show of hands to reveal who here has fibromyalgia. The audience is overwhelmingly female, too. Though both males and females can develop fibromyalgia, girls and women are seven times more likely to have the condition.

“In Scotland, it’s thought that there are around 330,000 people with it,” says MacLeod, a couple of days after her triumphal show. It took a lot out of her, she admits.

“My body is really sore but I’m OK,” she says. “I do put a lot into it. There’s no point in doing it half-heartedly.”

The show was staffed by volunteers from Fibro Friends United, a community interest group set up to raise awareness and support people with the condition. The team behind the small, hard-working organisation first saw MacLeod’s show when she performed at Glasgow’s Yesbar back in March as part of the city’s comedy festival. They decided to make her their ambassador.

“They said I was what they needed to raise awareness of a horrific illness in a way that people would understand,” says MacLeod, who has had requests from groups and individuals from Kent to Boston asking her to take the show to them.

There are currently thought to be around one million people in the UK with fibromyalgia but support, treatment and research lags behind that of other illnesses, says MacLeod.

Though the numbers are large, it’s an illness only brought into the public consciousness when a celebrity is known to have it.

“When Lady Gaga had to cancel her tour, or when Kirsty Young had to leave Desert Island Discs recently, the person they had on TV was a guy who had never suffered from it,” she says. “That really ripped my knitting. They were like, ‘It’s a chronic pain illness.’ It’s not just that, it affects your mental health, your bowels, your bladder, the way you walk, so many things.”

She adds: “Fibro Friends United are there to inspire, empower people, but they are a non-profit, social organisation without funding. If and when I go on tour, they are coming with me. We are helping each other, bringing the word to the masses through laughter.”

And Fibro My Arth! is a very funny show, whether you have fibromyalgia or not. MacLeod is a natural performer; warm, self-deprecating, occasionally wicked. On the odd occasion she loses her train of thought – another aspect of fibro is memory impairment – she recovers quickly, often with hilarious results.

The condition has meant that MacLeod can no longer go on the touring theatre shows that were long her bread and butter, however.

“It’s not to say I don’t want to do theatre again but in terms of the long touring, I’ve had to put my hand up and say: ‘I can’t do that any more’,” she says.

“Stand-up still gives me that sense of being on the stage, which is where I just thrive.

“Fibro obviously has its downsides, but if I can make people laugh about it, and raise awareness, I think it’s massive positive.”

www.facebook.com/carinacomic www.fibrofriendsunited.org