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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...

Unfinished business: Continuity @Finborough @Continuityplay

 
It's an odd feeling to laughing along with man about plant a bomb... But such is the world you're drawn into with Gerry Moynihan's Continuity, currently at the Finborough Theatre.

What's chilling about this this monologue is how it hooks you in to the story . Here the cause is taken as a given. Unquestioned, unflinching and ongoing... The Good Friday Agreement is the thin veneer of peace that conceals what's really happening on the ground. The ongoing rough justice, score settling and resistance that is largely unreported.

The story involves Padraig (Paul Kennedy), a member of the Continuity IRA. He is dedicated to the cause. But after meeting a girl from Barcelona, he soon finds his colleagues questioning him  about his commitment. And he begins to wonder about it himself.




Kennedy's Padriag is an engaging storyteller as he moves from cracking jokes to the details of planting a bomb. His likability catches you off guard as the story takes a darker turn. But he's also effective in bringing to life the world he inhabits - the humanity and inhumanity of it all.

The space of the Finborough, which is also being used as an Edwardian drawing room for Just To Get Married, is transformed by May Hannah Davies into something darker here. The drop cloths and moody lighting (and maybe the smell of fresh paint from the recent theatre refurb) emphasise the murky nature of the story.

Underscoring the tense mood with samples of news reports and an eclectic choice of music is Anna Clock's sound design.

Naturally being a story about Northern Ireland, violence and death feature throughout. It's enough to make you wonder what frictionless post-Brexit solution will be necessary to bring this closer to a resolution.

Directed by Shane Dempsey, Continuity is at the Finborough Theatre on Sundays, Mondays and Tuesday matinees until 19 August.

⭐︎⭐︎⭐︎⭐︎



Photos by Gary Wolf

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