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Still here: While They Were Waiting - Upstairs At The Gatehouse

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As the song goes, time heals everything. Or as another song says, it's time after time. Yet waiting—for a moment, a minute, or even a while—can feel like a chore. In Gary Wilmot’s slightly absurd and silly While They Were Waiting, the focus is on waiting and wordplay. No opportunity is missed to find more than one meaning in what is said. A debate arises about the difference between a smidge and a whisker. There's a playful riff on how you can be here and over there at the same time, depending on your standpoint. If this piece has a point at all, it depends on what you find funny. The concept of waiting-related language is, in itself, amusing, and there is plenty to laugh about in this show. It’s currently playing at Upstairs at the Gatehouse . The premise is simple: Mulbery (Steve Furst) arrives for an appointment and is kept waiting. What the appointment is for, we are not clear about but he is waiting for a yellow door to open. Nobody answers when he rings. He’s joined by th...

Axes to grind: Lizzie @Swkplay

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Arriving at the Southwark Playhouse Elephant , there are plenty of pigeons (real and otherwise) inside and outside the theatre.  Having not been there since it opened at the start of the year, I figured it was an art installation.  Little did I know that it was a crucial part of Lizzie, the hard rock, full-throated true crime rock musical.  Pigeons are solace from a stifling, oppressive life for an unmarried woman in 1890s Massachusetts.  And that is probably all the subtlety you'll get in this high-energy production.  It originated at the Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester and now makes a lot of noise in the Southwark Playhouse's basement venue.  Based on the trial of the century in 1890s Massachusetts, Lizzie Borden was acquitted of murdering her stepmother and father with an axe.  Over time, everyone believed she had done it.  There's even a nursery rhyme about her.  This piece is less interested in the whodunnit and more in the whyshedunnit....