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A Man For All Seasons: Seagull True Story - Marylebone Theatre

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It's not often that you see a play that tells you not so much a story but gives you a sense of how it feels to be in a situation, how it feels to be silenced, how it feels to be marginalised, how the dead hand of consensus stifles your creativity. However, in Seagull True Story, created and directed by Alexander Molochnikov and based on his own experiences fleeing Russia and trying to establish himself in New York, we have a chance to look beyond the headlines and understand how the war in Ukraine impacted a a group of ordinary creatives in Russia. And how the gradual smothering of freedom and freedom of expression becomes impossible to resist, except for the brave or the suicidal. Against the backdrop of Chekhov's The Seagull, which explores love and other forms of disappointment, it presents a gripping and enthralling depiction of freedom of expression in the face of adversity. After playing earlier this year in New York, it plays a limited run at the Marylebone Theatre . Fro...
On the buses

If you are going to familiarise yourself with a big city, a cheesy bus tour is definitely the way to go. Today I spent most of the day riding an open air double decker bus around the traps of London. It was called The Original Tour. Most sensible way to go about, although the commentary was a bit spotty I got a better sense of where I was including:

* Yesterday at Covent Garden I was a block away from the Strand
* Trafalgar square isn't that far away and Lord Nelson looked quite impressive way up there
* The British Museum had not lost any of its charm (but then again today was a smoggy day rather than a foggy day in London Town
* Margaret Thatcher has a police man outside her door still. Maybe it is to remind her nowadays where she lives since the press here love running "Maggies gone dotty stories". Like this one...

The tour included a complimentary £5 fish and chip meal at the Sherlock Holmes pub and that was edible. Alas it wasn't served with peas. Have made a mental note need to cook that meal when I find a place of my own!

Also included in the tour was a trip on the Thames. Well it almost nearly didn't happen as Skye caught up with me for that leg of my grand day out and presenting the same ticket that we bought two days earlier together to the wanker at the ferry he was going to make an issue about it not having the words "the original tour" on the ticket. And he added how much trouble that would create when this ticket gets back to central control er head office.

We could have argued all day about the finer points of this guy not knowing his own job since this ticket was part of his company's promotions, but Skye was much keener on just clobbering him with her bag. In the end having a copy of the flyer sold him on the idea that we had ponied up the dough for one of his shitty tickets and he had to give us one.

It is interesting that in a city where you can buy beer in a corner store you have to have a photo id to buy a weekly rail ticket (for no reason) and you have Original Tour ticket sellers not knowing their own tickets and then starting to complain to you about the problems of their job! Ah well its London. Mental note to fight and complain and get aggressive with unhelpful service workers... it seems to help!

Making the most of the internet terminals near Victoria Station tonight... Needing to go home and rest. Interview tomorrow at 11 which will bring my touristing to a brief halt. Since it is on the Strand though I might just take in a museum or two.

Other useful things to know:
* On hot days when drinking bottles of evian it is good to know where all the public conveniences are.
* Good looking joggers pop out of the Savoy hotel when you don't have your camera ready.
* Covent Garden may have been nice once... but it smelled too much like a tourist trap to me... I just noted where the theatres and museums were before quickly moving on.
* Stripey deck chairs in parks are very comfy

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