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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...

Diplomatic banter: The Ballerina @khaoseurope


One person's waterboarding is another person's banter in The Ballerina. It has a short but somewhat delayed run as part of the Vault Festival under the railway arches at Waterloo. It was due to appear in 2020, but the pandemic got in the way. Since then the world post George Floyd, post dumping of a slave trader statue in Bristol Harbour seems to have diminished the novelty of the piece. But you never quite know if it's all a bit of a mind game or some friendly banter.

The Vaults is a dystopian theatre setting at the best of times. Damp, cold and with the constant rumbling of trains overhead. When you throw in a piece that includes mind games and the odd bit of torture, it certainly is a confronting piece of theatre. Although perhaps not for the intended reasons. While there are various trigger warnings about the content, perhaps the audience could have also done with a bit of reassurance that no actors were harmed in making the piece too. 


Told over a series of short scenes, what unfolds is an incident that leads to a diplomat's detainment. What at first seems to be a typical narrative of some unnamed African dictatorship detaining freedom and the peace-loving western individual becomes more complex as the line between rights and wrongs becomes unclear. 

It's an immersive experience as actors with animal face masks, music, and lighting conspire to challenge the audience to think about western foreign policy around the world. And also how little we know about the daily life on the African continent that doesn't include a story of war, famine or corruption. 

Enjoy a front-row seat for your preconceptions if you have them. And don’t mind the backwash from the waterboarding… It’s all part of the banter. Written by Anne-Sophie Marie and Directed by James Barnes, The Ballerina is at the Vaults until Sunday, 5 February.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Photo credit: production photos


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