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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...

Scenes from Winchester Saturday 15:52 - Bank Holiday weekend. If you are not travelling somewhere exotic, why not go to Winchester? They have a cathedral, some castle ruins and a flower market where young lads sell flowers...

Winchester also seemed to be a lovely town to go if you were pregnant. There seemed to be pregnant women everywhere... Maybe they are all locals and there is a baby boom on its way... It was interesting to observe all of this. There were also more elderly persons in wheelchairs per able bodied person than I have seen anywhere else of late.

As for the cathedral, it was a bog-standard. Posted by Picasa

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Play ball: Damn Yankees @LandorTheatre

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