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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...

Brief transactions: The Cloakroom Attendant @Tristanbates

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The Cloakroom Attendant is a mediation on the ordinary among the extraordinary. It concludes this evening at the Tristan Bates Theatre . Set deep below a prestigious gallery of national importance. In the basement lies the cloakroom. It’s a place where dreams, fashion and items larger than a small bag need to be left. It’s a ritual and an obligation before viewing the masterpieces high above.  And of course being a job in London it’s a role that’s filled by a young European national, Dimitra Barla. Over qualified and over from Greece. Fluent in four languages.  She watches the people and their belongings while contemplating her own life and choices. This solo show brings to life Barla’s experiences working as a cloakroom attendant. She provides a museum-like categorisation and classification of visitors. And along the way she also imagines and reimagines her own life and the artefacts around her.  Alternatively funny and mysterious, objects and artefacts intertwine with h...