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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...
Just another Summer Saturday in London

Today was one of those days when you could have:
  1. Seen the women's final at Wimbledon (assuming that you had tickets)
  2. Gone to Live 8 at Hyde Park (assuming you won tickets on the mobile phone lottery)
  3. Participated in the London Pride (assuming you were a gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender person)
I went the third one of these. There hadn't been so many gay men in central London since yesterday, but that didn't stop anybody having a good time. I wasn't planning on taking part in the actual march from Hyde Park to Victoria Embankment, but A convinced me to do so and before I knew it I was walking up Piccadilly getting applause (which is something that you don't get everyday).

There was an interesting part near Pall Mall as well where anti-gay protestors had placards saying something about sodomites. A and his friends asked what we should be doing at this point and I said we should just do what everybody else was doing: make impolite gestures with our middle finger and shout "motherfuckers". We did. And it was such fun. It was probably the most sensible debate to have with these people.

I didn't really spot any celebrities unless you count rights campaigner Peter Tatchell as one. He has to be admired for his passion on issues and his attempt to make a citizens arrest on despot Mugabe, even though he is a tad left on the political spectrum...

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