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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...

Theatre: Epitahph For George Dillon

I spent the week catching up on a few things about to finish. One of these being Epitaph for George Dillon, which is a revival of a John Osborne / Anthony Creighton play starring Joseph Feinnes. It was a fascinating play that has held up well since the 1950s when it was written. When Feinnes walked in you could hear a collective swoon from the female members of the audience. I wasn't quite sure why as sitting in second row I could see he doesn't have any lips. Of course the makeup he had on accentuated this feature, he walked with a hunch, and the character he played wasn't such a nice chap, but obviously none of that mattered to the rest of the audience.

The central message of the play seemed to be that it is fine to be a bohemian in suburbia as at least it pays the bills. Oh and marry somebody you don't really like as well. It is not surprising the play was written by two closeted bitchy queens who certainly knew how to write great one-liners, but they also created a great snapshot of middle class life in 1950s London. All entertaining stuff.

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