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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...
Bad news...

Hearing about the death of a friend today has put blogging a little on hold... But coming home on the tube tonight I did listen to a song by William Finn which contains some great lyrics:

I believe,
And I have found,
Hyperbole, is not what makes the world go round,
Just living, just navigating firm and level ground,
Has power to astound,
I have found.

It's been said,
And I have heard,
That quiet, doesn't have to be a dirty word,
Just talking,is often more expressive than a shriek,
Its nice to merely speak,
I have found.

Look around

Contentment it seems,
Simply happens
It appears
Accompanied by no grovels
And no tears

from "I have found" - William Finn

And so life goes on...

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