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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...

Lighter shades of grey: The Picture of Dorian Gray @Trafstudios


Something seems missing in this new adaptation of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, currently playing at Trafalgar Studios. Missing is any sense of excitement or thrills you would expect from Oscar Wilde's story about a beautiful man's hedonistic descent.

The story was a scandal when it was first published. This new adaptation by Merlin Holland (Wilde's grandson) and John O'Connor, restores some homoerotic passages from the original manuscript. But as fascinating as they are, the overall piece is a bit of a damp squib.


It is perplexing that more was not made of the the added homoeroticism. There are no kisses, no sexual liaisons. It all talk and no show in this passionless production, despite the dialogue suggesting otherwise.

Guy Warren-Thomas as Dorian with his sharp and delicate features makes a fine Dorian, but the remaining three performers seem miscast. They also have the thankless task of playing over twenty roles and dragging a few pieces of furniture about the set.

If it is an economic necessity to have four cast members, it would be better to remove some of the superfluous roles so that the differentiation between characters did not have to rely on the type of hat or gloves the actor is wearing. Future shows that reduce casts should also seriously look at equal gender casting so we don't have to have suffer male actors playing pantomime dames in drama pieces.

Downstairs at the Trafalgar Studios is a great intimate space and at times it feels like they are acting in your lap. But with its short scenes and huge cast, perhaps this is a piece that might play better as a television movie... It is a pity that it has not been adapted to better suit its current space (and its economic confines).

The Picture of Dorian Grey is at Trafalgar Studios until 13 February.

⭐︎⭐︎⭐︎

Photo credit: Production photo by Emily Hyland

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