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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 the V&A Museum Wednesday 17:32


Scenes from the V&A Museum Wednesday 17:32
Originally uploaded by Pauly_.

If there is something Londoners love, it is boring looking chairs on display in a museum as part of a justification of modernism. Politics, design and cheap mass production all combined made up for an incredibly dreary and mind-numbing exhibition. Nevertheless the punters are flocking to it, as afterall why wouldn't you pay big money to see a chair like this?

Much more interesting (and quicker to get through) was an exhibition on Che Guevara based around his iconic photograph taken by Alberto Díaz Korda on March 5, 1960. It is considered to be the most reproduced image in the history of photographs and whether or not it is true, it has become a symbol of pop culture. The original photo (and contact sheet) is on display along with the countless t-shirts, posters, ice cream wrappers, handbags, album covers that either used the image or were inspired from it. What is it about that scruffy-looking revolutionary turned Minister of Cuban government that captures the punter's imagination?

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