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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...

Panto at the sofa: The Legend of Moby Dick Whittington @wesleepingtrees

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If you’re missing live theatre and missing live panto, Sleeping Trees have come up with an ingenious way to bring the spirit of panto season to your living room or your makeshift office (if you’re not casting it on television). The Legend of Moby Dick Whittington isn’t a show for couch potatoes either as you’ll find yourself throwing things at your telly or making a ship out of a sofa. And my household agreed that at fifty minutes long it has more laughs than series four of the Crown.  The premise is that Dick Whittington having defeated King Rat, is Mayor of London. And during his first Christmas Santa is eaten by a large white wale. And so with the help of Dr Arab, a marine biologist they find the Whale, and get out Santa and save Christmas. Sleeping Trees have a history of turning traditional pantomimes on their head. Previous shows included Cinderella and the Beanstalk and Scrooge and the Seven Dwarves . Now with The Legend of Moby Dick Whittington, they can use the magic of ...

Meanwhile in Battersia: Scrooge and the Seven Dwarves @theatre503

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There is a scene in the early part of Scrooge and The Seven Dwarves at Theatre 503 where Santa appears and asks the children in the audience what they want for Christmas. "A butler" replies one. You know you're in Battersea with responses like that. But this isn't just a panto that you get your nanny to take the children to while shopping on Kings Road. The Sleeping Trees have again fused fairy tale and Christmas stories to create an anarchic panto tale about Christmas. With lashings of silliness to boot it may not be a traditional panto, but it is still a lot of fun.