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The brown word: Death on the Throne @gatehouselondon

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We’re warned at the start of the show with an upbeat number that this is not the usual sort of musical. And it turns out to be just that. But with boundless enthusiasm and energy from its two leads, who deploy a range of voices and breathtaking energy to create a series of voices for puppet characters, a bedtime story becomes a silly oddball tale about four souls stuck in purgatory. With puppets. And various toilet humour references. It’s currently playing at Upstairs At The Gatehouse . The piece starts as a bedtime story. Daddy (Mark Underwood) is about to read a bedtime story for Louise (Sarah Louise Hughes). But her stomach felt funny, and soon, she went to the bathroom. Then, for reasons that seem to only make sense in the confines of the show, they start telling the story of four people who died in unfortunate circumstances in the bathroom. Depicted as puppets, they’re stuck in purgatory as St Peter doesn’t have enough space for each of them in the afterlife. And so begins a puppe...
Well there are worse things than sweating at the airport at Narita...

After an emotionally driaining flight to Narita where only the calmative properties of Maxolon could soothe the savage headache and everything else that I had, I was looking forward to the hotel stay at Narita to at least get a shower. A pity that the transfer bus was a little late and so we all had to wait outside in the heat and the smog for the next bus. As beads of sweat dripped from me everywhere I thought I was about to pass out. Only the Sondheim song "It's hot in here" kept me amused and conscious.

By the time I got to the hotel I was too exhausted to contemplate a trip to Tokyo. Maybe next time when it wasn't so bloody hot I thought. Fortunately the Japanese excel themselves with the wide range of isotonic drinks they have available. I spent the next 20 hours savouring them in mass quantities.

The next leg to London was bloody long but amusing enough. Although everywhere I went there were little reminders of Brisbane. The inflight movie was "Breakfast at Tiffany's" so that was a little sad to watch.

By the time I arrived at Heathrow I was just glad. Getting through immigration was surprisingly quick. The bureaucrat behind the counter asked me,
"So whatcha come to Britain for?"
"For a holiday?" was my reply
He looked though my passport and saw my visa and then corrected me
"... a WORKING holiday"
"Yeah"
"Okay off you go then"
So that was the surprisingly quick exchange that occurred.

Skye met me there at Heathrow and laughed at my baggage (my real baggage not my emotional). We stayed and had more isotonic drinks and Skye enjoyed a cheesy lasange.

After waiting an hour for the peak to subside and having her in tears about my final weeks in Brisbane we went on the tube. I was chatting to her and being very untube like in my manner which got us a few looks but apart from that things were okay.

Then when we had to change trains I had a laugh about the announcement that "due to somebody being under a train, all services for [such and such a ] line were cancelled".

For Skye she found it interesting that I laughed at it. Maybe all will be good here.

I slept at Lish's place and it was so nice to have a sleep.

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