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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...
Guy Fawkes Night

Well as I am working back in the office reading emails and the news (and updating the blog), I can see fireworks out of every office window. All good fun and much more fun than the rocket that went off after 1am in my neighbourhood. Meanwhile The Times released new data on "what if" Guy Fawkes succeeded in blowing up Parliament? The answer is that he would have destroyed the whole Whitehall area.

Work

Working on the South Bank gives you spectacular views of the city, and is handy for Tate Modern and the National, but isn’t so great for doing most of the daily routine things like shopping, eateries etc...

Actually the area is underdeveloped... The nearby Oxo Tower is a bit of a white elephant and some substantial reworking of the area needs to happen before the area becomes popular... Part of the problem is that it is just too far away from the major walking bridges (the Golden Jubilee Bridge near the London Eye and the formerly wobbly Millennium Bridge near Tate Modern) to bring the punters to the area. It is right near Blackfriars Bridge but that is not a particularly popular pedestrian area (thanks to the roads around it and the fact it is only a hub for The City. It is still nice however to walk to over Blackfriars Bridge to the tube at night and see St Paul’s in lights. In 10 mintues after I post this the camera on this link will capture me walking across it but I guess nobody will really see me doing that!

Conversation with Skye re sensible dating policy
Skye: This is the phone number of the guy I am seeing tonight so if my body turns up in the Thames you know who to call to ask about it.
Paul: Okay...

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