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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...

Art in a dark moist place: David Breuer-Weil's Project 4

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David Breuer-Weil from Guy Natanel on Vimeo . London-based artist David Breuer-Weil has taken over the vaults under Waterloo Station with Project 4, an evocative and thought-provoking exhibition about the world, the apocalypse and other social and political considerations. Nothing is small scale here. Everything is big. Most of his paintings are two metres high and four metres long. One giant canvas follows another and as you are drawn into the tunnels under Waterloo Station, they come together to form an impressive spectacle of colour. Interspersed amongst these is Breuer-Weil's sculptures which give the works an added dimension and physicality. Many Londoners will be familiar with his works, particularly his sculpture. Emergence (see below after the jump) was temporarily installed into Hanover Square in 2012 and Visitor has previously been seen in Golders Hill Park, Hampstead.

(Silent) Opera: La Boheme

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As part of the Vault Festival , which transforms a series of interconnected tunnels underneath Waterloo Station into something theatrical and fabulous this month, I caught a packed production of La Boheme by Silent Opera with @Johnnyfoxlondon . Like other companies , Silent Opera is about taking operatic masterpieces and adapting them into modern settings. What makes them unique is that they tap into the iPod generation and use headphones to place the performers and the music in real life and odd spaces. The former National Rail plans and drawings archive must fit the latter. With a mix of levels, false ceilings, grimy floors and porta-loos, it is a far cry from the Royal Opera.