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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...

Theatre: Bands and Cigarettes

An old school friend sent me a message asking if life in London was an endless stream of theatre productions and overheard conversations. Well basically I would have to say (in between the rest), yes... So bearing that in mind, Fraser and I went to see two short plays by the National Youth Theatre at the Soho Theatre (or should that be the national yoof featre?)...

Anyway, the first play The Band was about a bunch of Manchunians bitching and moaning... I could relate to it as I lived with a Manchunian and that's seem to be what they do best... Fraser wasn't so enthralled by it with all its teen angst and overplayed drama. Besides he was still pissed that I had arrived late to the theatre and there wasn't time for a drink beforehand... Still even sober I thought it was great fun. Even better was that it was short and short is always a good thing... As mid week who has the attention span to last longer than 50 minutes before an interval or break?

The second play was 20 Cigarettes, which also featured the not-so-youthful Simon Dutton. I quite enjoyed watching Simon Dutton but Fraser started to wonder if the large glass of wine I consumed during interval had gone to my head... It was all those well-pronounced vowels I suppose... Anyway the play was a great ensemble piece and quite funny. There were lots of cigarettes too (along with the odd cigar). Special permission has to be sought to do that sort of thing on stage nowadays since smoking is the new pornography... But for good reason I suppose... Watching Harry Melling puff away on a cigar made me wish I hadn't given away all my cigars last week at a colleague's leaving work do. All told I would go again. Not just because the plays were good (and short), or the actors are the very talented stars of tomorrow... But for the passive smoking...

Leaving the theatre, there was an even bigger crowd waiting to see Miss Coco Peru. Strangely they were mostly male mostly recognisable from my gym. Who knew so many men are out there looking for cheap laughs?

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