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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...

Up late: West End Eurovision Pictures

Last week's West End Eurovision at the Dominion Theatre, its seventh and final year in support of The Make A Difference (MAD) Trust saw the cast of Mamma Mia! and Les Misérables jointly winning the trophy.





By all accounts a memorable late night on the West End, with the highlight of the evening coming in a speech given by director Andrew Keates, about his experience directing a revival of the first ever AIDS play, As Is by William M. Hoffman, and how this affected his own life.

The MAD Trust works with the British entertainment industry and its audiences to raise funds to offer care and support to people living with HIV, AIDS and other chronic illnesses, who are unable to work and are facing hardship.

To support The MAD Trust all people have to do is text MADT £3 to 70007 to give just £3. And look out for West End Bares coming later this year...

Images by Darren Bell



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