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Showing posts with the label Debbie Hannan

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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...

Fried chicken runs: Cuckoo @sohotheatre

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Everyo ne hates Iona. She talks too much. Her only friend is non-binary mate Pingu who doesn’t speak at all. So they decide to get the hell out of Crumlin on the next Ryanair flight. Afterall it is the part of Northe rn Ireland that has the Airport. But their decision to leave makes them a bit of a celebrity. Despite the enthusiastic cast, Lisa Carroll’s play Cuckoo doesn’t cover much. It’s currently playing at the Soho Theatre . It’s your typical young person wanting to break out of shitty town story. If you’re unfamiliar with Crumlin in Northern Ireland, you can only assume it’s pretty grim. Much of the action centres around a place called Texas Fried Chicken. We don’t get to know the characters well. As they fight and film each other for instagram stories they become less and less interesting. I was hoping at one point we would understand why the two central characters were friends. But in this ninety minute play dragged out to nearly two hours, we get one fight or dance routine aft...