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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: Complicit


img_0621, originally uploaded by Paul-in-London.

At intermission at Complicit Monday evening at the Old Vic it was a case of some people being complicit in staging photos featuring a very nice looking celebrity and director. Well some people at least seemed to be unnaturally excited to be in his theatre...

Kevin Spacey is directing this new play by Joe Sutton with Richard Dreyfuss, Elizabeth McGovern and David Suchet in the cast. It is still in preview but early word has been all about Richard Dreyfuss using an earpiece to remember lines. It is earpiece-gate. Now after seeing it I have to sympathise with all the actors as they have some weighty dialogue to deliver at times. It is afterall, another play about life under the Bush administration. And perhaps as a new president is innaguarated, the punters aren't ready to relive the horrors of the past eight years.

The play itself centres around a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist (Dreyfuss) who has to face a Grand Jury and divulge the name of his source on stories about the use of torture and rendition. The story has echoes of the Judith Miller / New York Times case and as the play unfolds it is the subject matter that keeps you hooked. And waiting. For the dramatic. Pauses. To pass.

Well I wasn't bothered by that and I wasn't bothered about Dreyfuss's earpiece either (it could have been a hearing aid as he looks much older than he is). His delivery was fine too. What was a shame was the less-than-convincing relationship between Dreyfuss's character and his wife (McGovern). She seems to have not much to do at times other than act with her back to the audience. Perhaps the big ideas of politics, journalism and power get in the way of developing sympathetic characters. Maybe another week of previews could help smooth things. Or maybe I was just too fussy. At the end of the performance there were more than a few people on their feet applauding.

All told while it isn't a brilliant play, it is still worth catching. It looks great too and so does the Old Vic with its new theatre space and bars. There is Sino Thai or Meson don Felipe nearby for a bite to eat. It all adds up to a rather sensible evening of good dining and modern politics and moral dilemmas if you ask me... It is on until 21 February.

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