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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...

Opening tonight: Neville's Island

The West End production of the comedy Neville's Island opens at the Duke of York’s Theatre tonight, Tuesday 21st October.

Following its run at the Chichester Festival last year, the show is booking to Saturday 3rd January 2015.


The cast features Adrian Edmondson (reprising his performance as Gordon from the Chichester run), Miles Jupp, Neil Morrissey and Robert Webb.

Written by Tim Firth and directed by Angus Jackson, it is about four out-of-condition, out-of-their-depth businessmen on an out-of-control team-building exercise, and marks the plays return to the West End 20 years after it was first seen at the Apollo Theatre.




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