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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...
Drinks, what drinks?

Have managed to go to the gym four days in a row. Doing different parts of the body of course, but this sudden burst of physical activity was more by accident than design. For the last two nights people have cancelled drinks on me. Having a hunch that this was possible as both nights the drinks would have been with ambivalent types, I took my gym bag as plan B. So while I haven't been social, I have been getting fitter. I pointed out to my single colleagues at work that this is important in the post breakup period as by the time one has got one's shit together, one will look a bitofallright. Because let's face it, when you are in a relationship... Things can get let go... Even when they shouldn't.

Overheard at the gym tonight:

Nothing... All was quiet (during the times I wasn't plugged into the iPOD listening to Kylie's latest single Giving You Up - her 29th top 10 UK single - downloaded from iTunes)

But overheard on Tottenham Court Road:

Girl #1: Have you ever considered dropping by the Scientology shop?
Girl #2: Uh no...
Girl #1: They apparently offer all sorts of psychological testing...
Girl #2: My issues aren't worth testing...

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