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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 SW4: Abbeville Road Fete Saturday 13:10



The annual summer fete was a time for people to enjoy the sun and meet the neighbours. The streets were closed around Abbeville Road and there were the usual stalls and family events.

And speaking of neighbours, a conversation I overheard went something like this:
Lady with children (to two scruffy-looking men with beers): Excuse me do you live in the flat upstairs from us?
Scruffy Man #1: Uh yeah...
Lady with children: Um you were a bit noisy last night, is it possible to keep the noise down?
Scruffy Man #2: Uh sorry yeah there were all these people that just came over for like a party and it sorta got outta hand...

And there is an insight into part of the demographic make up of the little part of Clapham that I live in: Bugaboo parents and scruffy types... Incidentally I only knew what a Bugaboo was after my sister got one. Only then did I realise that all these parents in my street with these prams bearing the same distinctive logo on them were not part of a cult... Or maybe they are??

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