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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...

Mad as duck: The Monkey @theatre503


A debt, a bad nickname and an obsession Reservoir Dogs come into focus in John Stanley's funny and dark play The Monkey at Theatre 503.

Stanley notes that he has distilled the four characters in the piece from the larger than life characters he has encountered. They bring to life the many traits of London's sub-culture of addiction and criminality. It's part of the Homecoming's season of new writing by prisoners and ex-prisoners. The stories are about getting out and going home.

But what is fascinating in this hilarious piece is how he has created a unique character in Terry. Terry (or Tel as his mates call him) has left Bermondsey and trying to leave his old past behind. But an old mate Thick-Al owes him money (or a monkey)  His mates think he has a bit of screw loose but also that he is a soft touch.




Morgan Watkins brings Tel to life as a crazy, edgy, addicted character with an obsession for 90s R-rated flicks. He paces the stage, adjusts his tie and moves awkwardly in his tight-fitting suit. He stares down the others. Exploding into rage. You're disturbed by him but you can't help liking him.  By the time the piece ends I wanted more. Maybe there are more stories to tell about him in a future book... Or a television series.

As the slob Thick-Al, George Whitehead is the comic buffoon of the piece. While Daniel Kendrick as Dal and Danielle Flett as Becks come across as the troubled yet loveable thieves who rob to feed their addictions.

The play is full of enough slang words to warrant its own glossary at the back of the programme. And no piece set on a south London council estate would be complete without endless rhyming slang to the point that it becomes it's own word play. Plusses become red busses and minuses become sinuses. For Stanley's first play with its constant hilarity and great performances it was all red buses to me.

Directed by Russell Bolam, The Monkey runs at Theatre 503 until 18 March.

⭐︎⭐︎⭐︎⭐︎



Photos by Simon Annand

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