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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...

Another look at bathroom mind games: Mydidae

The last time I saw Mydidae in December the full frontal nudity seemed a bit of a novelty. Now a few months later and transferred to the Trafalgar Studios, it is not the only show in the West End where the actors bare all, but they are probably still the only ones with a fully-plumbed bathroom.

While the prospect of seeing actors live and vulnerable is no doubt enough to arouse the interest of the punters, it is not all cheap laughs. Innocent and amusing banter soon becomes a voyeuristic look into shattered dreams and provocations.

The play has undergone some changes since it was last presented in December. They don't alter the overall structure of the piece. But whether it was the benefit of seeing it previously or the ongoing polishing and refining of the work, the events seemed much clearer and felt like the drama progressed more naturally this time around. The audience reaction was also much stronger with greater laughs and more palpable gasps.

It still is a funny and frank exploration of a young couple with a secret. Pheobe Waller-Bridge and Keir Charles undress, shave, wash and urinate in front of the audience. But it is how you feel as an audience member peering in on a couples mundane and not so mundane daily existence that gives this piece an intensity and brutal honesty.

Waller-Bridge and director Vicky Jones are Co-Artistic director of DryWrite, the theatre company behind this production. They asked writer Jack Thorne, whose other play credits include The Physicists at the Donmar, to set a play about a man and a woman in a bathroom as a means of exploring the subject of privacy and intimacy... Through a series of seemingly ordinary gestures and exchanges they build up to something that is extraordinary and shocking

Whether it is a great night out might depend on how you like your theatrical experiences. But it is not the sort of evening that you are likely to forget in a hurry. The last time around I met an ex colleague after the show who was dragged to the theatre by his girlfriend. They both loved the piece but it may make you think twice about sharing a soothing bath...

Downstairs at the Trafalgar Studios is just as intimate a space as the Soho Theatre and if you missed it last time now is your chance. It runs through to 30 March.







 
Photo credits: Simon Annand and Richard Lakos

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