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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...

Amongst it all: Debris @Swkplay

On the night I finally managed to catch Debris at the Southwark Playhouse, yet another cyclist death at Elephant and Castle had ground traffic in the area to a halt. The show's start was slightly delayed as people struggled to make the starting time. But the subject matter of loss and imagination seemed even more at the fore in this intriguing production.

The sudden death of their mother leads to brother and sister, Michael and Michelle, having to fend for themselves. They recount their stories and each becomes darker and more sinister.

An alcoholic father, an abusive carer, adopting a newborn they find in the garbage, you never quite know what is real or otherwise as they try to work out where they came from and find meaning in their life.


It's disturbingly well played by actors Harry McEntire and Leila Mimmack, who take you on a journey into a strange world for its sixty minute duration. It is a haunting and evocative piece that will have you thinking about the vulnerability of life.

The production is also very smart. You enter the space of the little not sure where to walk as there is an enormous pile of broken bricks and concrete in the centre. Designer Signe Beckmann has made the most of the abandoned warehouse that is now the temporary theatre space for the Southwark Theatre, which in fact makes the space look like an abandoned empty warehouse. Although you might want to sit further back if you are wearing dark fabrics and don't fancy being covered in builders dust during some of the more dramatic sequences of the piece.

The run concludes at the Southwark Playhouse tonight.

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Photo credit: Richard Davenport, Production photo

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