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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...
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My night with mum and me sisters: Straight and Narrow @abovethestag

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Update: since posting, Above the Stag has announced its permanent closure Above the Stag Theatre is going all retro with a revival of Jimmie Chinn's Straight and Narrow. Before the show begins, clips from television programmes and commercials are playing from the period to get you in the mood. In case you need to know (or be reminded) about what living in the eighties was like. And while time may not have been too kind to this piece with its views on women and foreigners, this production manages to create a vivid portrait of family dynamics in Manchester. Set in the 1980s in Manchester, Bob (Lewis Allcock) and Jeff (Todd Von Joel) are long-term boyfriends who also have a successful business installing kitchens. But spending years together doing the same thing every day, they seem stuck in a rut. A trip to Malta is an opportunity to do something differently. But the trip didn't go as either of them was expecting. Things get a bit explosive and emotional on the return. And Bob...
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