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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...
News: Freud's latest

Lucian Freud new self-portrait goes on show at the National Portrait Gallery. The speculation over who the young naked woman clinging to the 82 year old painter is commences... Nothing like a bit of mystery in the art world, particularly involving a superstar artist...

Alas the gallery was not open when I walked by it tonight... Some other time

News: Sock it to him

Cherie Blair last night tells the East End constituency of New Labour MP Oona King to give George Galloway a bloodied nose at the ballot box. George Galloway used to be a Scottish Labour MP who was famous for visiting and brown nosing Saddam in Iraq. Now with his own loony left / broad coalition of anyone against the war party, he is hoping to capture the Muslim vote in the east end. The papers tried to pin many things on Galloway but he won libel suits against them, but there is something unpleasant about this beady-eyed bald Scotsman. Still that has never stopped anyone from getting elected...

News: Outfoxing the mugger

South Kensington City Fund Manager (and woman) gets pistol whipped in a botched mugging Monday night. Rather than hand over her ring she threw it into bushes and told the would-be mugger that she dropped it... Don't mess with the city fund manager...

Misc

No gym tonight as picked up lurgie in the past couple of days. But:

  • Will catch the Barbican production of Julius Ceasar Thursday night
  • The show is now estimated to run for three and a half hours. As Thursday night is the show's first night it is probably too early to expect too many cuts...
  • Julius Ceasar cast includes Ralph Fiennes and Fiona Shaw.
  • I was to take Marc to this but that was in the before time, so I am now taking colleage F from work.
  • This change of plans did not go down well and I more emails from him in one afternoon than I have had in the past four months (which provided for interesting reading for my friends who love reading the rantings of a madman). Of course personally when you have done the madman relationship in the past it is all a bit frightfully passe.
  • Planning to consume the odd can of Red Bull to make it through Thursday and the occasional Lemsip
  • Friday afternoon take off to Angers, France for the weekend. Planning on catching some sleep on the Eurostar...
  • Life goes on...

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Fantasies: Afterglow @Swkplay

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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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