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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...

Swinging and projecting: Soho @PeacockTheatre #sohotheshow


A journey through London's soho with its street workers, artists, drag queens and everyday people is the theme of Soho. It is a  physical movement spectacular at the Peacock Theatre for a brief run.

Acrobats, dance and projections combine with a throbbing soundtrack to make for a breathtaking evening.

At times there is so much going on that it's hard to know where to look. But it's a slick piece of circus artisty and projections


It's a great ensemble with a mix of different circus specialists and dance experts.

There's martial artist Anton Simpson-Tidy, hip hop dancer hair-ography expert Kayla Lomas-Kirton. Alessio Motta serves as the everyman of the piece but also wows the audience with a thrilling performance on the Chinese pole. Big guy Charlee Rico DeBolla has some great scenes flexing his beefcake and showing off on the aerial straps.


Aerial tissue and drag artist Danny Ash should get a special achievement for singing while hanging upside down and struggling with a wig.


But Xander Taylor and Mélanie Dupuis steal the show with a romantic and gravity defying performance on the doubles trapeze.

The soundtrack is a mixtape of old and new music featuring the Sex Pistols, Bowie, Daft Punk and Etta James. It's pulled together with new compositions by Peter Coyte.



Perhaps it goes on for a bit. Not all the projections and lighting highlighted the work of the performers. The intermission seemed to interrupt the flow of the evening. And it would have been fun to have a segment on the clone shops and luxury developments changing the face of Soho.

But it's better to say its a circus in Soho.  Directed by Abigail Yates, Soho is at the Peacock Theatre until 20 May.

⭐︎⭐︎⭐︎⭐︎

Photos by Stufish.


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