Posts

Showing posts with the label Daniel Evans

Featured Post

The brown word: Death on the Throne @gatehouselondon

Image
Weā€™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. Itā€™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, theyā€™re stuck in purgatory as St Peter doesnā€™t have enough space for each of them in the afterlife. And so begins a puppe...

Cough medicine: Quiz

Image
You donā€™t often expect to go to a show where coughing during the performance is essential part of it. James Grahamā€™s Quiz at Noel Coward Theatre elevates a minor moment in history into a melodrama fit for television. The story is around the trial of Charles and Diana Ingram who were convicted of trying to defraud the quiz show ā€œWho Wants To Be A Millionaireā€ in 2003. Mostly through a series of well-timed coughs. Cameras roll, music roars, the mob votes on little gizmos. Thereā€™s even a nod to the humble pub quiz as its origins. It is fun. But itā€™s also a night that leaves you thinking about another quiz show. Pointless. The production is drunk on the television gimmicks itā€™s trying to critique. The glamour of television, instant polls and dazzling lighting.  All come at the expense of character development and a convincing argument about confirmation bias. You get a chance to vote on whether theyā€™re guilty twice. Once before interval and once at the end. Itā€™s set up to get people t...