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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...
Politics: New Labour testing ground

Labour is testing a series of posters that it may use in the election on the theme Britain is working. Don't let the Tories wreck it again (which borrows the same slogan from what the Tories used 10 years ago but anyway...). They are all are pretty underwhelming in the mudslinging stakes and surely must only appeal to the most die-hard of campaign fanatics...

Meanwhile over on the Conservative.com site, the new slogan: "Are you thinking what we're thinking?" is being rolled out... Quite cryptic really...

News: Crimes against intruders

Amid concerns that crime is out of control (and depending on what statistics you look at you could argue this toss one way or another), in the battle over what people can do to protect their homes during a burglary, new guidelines released this week say pretty much anything now goes. You still can't set traps or punish a burglar by death, but anything else is fair game. The advice was released to make homeowners feel safe about keeping that cricket bat by gun by their bedside table (who also will be voting in May as well)...

News: Mandela in London

Nelson Mandela is in London for the rest of the week to address the G7 industrialised nations about "making poverty history". He will also address a Rally in Trafalgar Square. Chancellor Gordon Brown is leading on the initiative from the Government, but whether any real action on wiping third world debt and giving developing nations real access to world markets is another matter...

Films in London

There are a couple of films shot in London screening here at the moment:
* Closer - drama with Julia and Jude etc... location map is here
* Creep - A garden variety slasher flick set on the London Underground and uses the disused platforms at Charring Cross.

Life Bits

* New haircut (check)
* New gym membership (check)
* New place to live (still looking)

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Opera and full frontal nudity: Rigoletto

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David McVicar's oddly modern production of Rigoletto is back at the Royal Opera House . This modern and minimalist dark production has evolved over the years. It is better lit now but there is still an orgy and full frontal nudity within the first thirty minutes. This enables anyone not in the stalls an excellent view of a flaccid penis and a nicely shaved bush. But as time goes it seems more and more superfluous to the main focus of this tragedy of a court jester who seeks revenge. Here is hoping that the production continues to evolve... Conductor John Eliot Gardiner keeps the music well paced. Dimitri Platanias in the title role sounded great and received a rapturous applause for his interpretation of the role. You get a sense more of the doting father rather than the court jester or cursed man here. Vittorio Grigolo plays the Duke and sounds too lovely to be the cad the role calls for, but it is hard not to like when he is on stage anyway. And it is easier to understan...
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Fantasies: Afterglow @Swkplay

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Nowadays no self-respecting gay play can be staged without full frontal nudity of some kind. It feels like the default response for the modern gay play now that gay rights are no longer an issue .   Afterglow, currently playing at Southwark Playhouse , serves it up in spades. From the beginning, three men are in a bed, naked. There’s what appears to be a very brief exhalation of ecstasy, before the obligatory rush to the shower. But the gratuitous nudity and excellent performances can’t conceal this is a pretty conventional and predictable story about a fantasy couple.  The three men in the simultaneous orgasm at the start of the piece are Josh, Alex and Darius. Josh and Alex seem to live in a New York world where they can afford a rooftop apartment in Manhattan while holding jobs as a theatre director and a grad student in chemistry. As writer S. Asher Gelman based it on his own experiences, perhaps gay plays with full frontal nudity are the way to achieve financial ...
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Play ball: Damn Yankees @LandorTheatre

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Damn Yankees at the Landor Theatre is one hell of a fun, sexy show. A great cast of dancers and singers give this show about a man who sells his soul to get on his beloved baseball team (and give them a chance of winning) new legs and balls. It also helps to up the ante with the sexiness with some healthy doses of cleavage and legs (and that's just the men). The musical is a retelling of the Faust story set in the 1950s when the New York Yankees dominated the game.
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