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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 in progress: The Menu

Friday night I caught a "work in progress" at the National Theatre called "The Menu". It is what they are referring to as a scratch performance where in essence they are workshopping a new piece but with an audience. There were enough disclaimers to lower anybody's expectations about what we were about to see but in essence it wasn't that bad. Sure the production was unfinished and there were enough subplots to drive anyone crazy (and some scenes didn't make any sense) but there is the potential there in this play set in the not too distant future Britain, where suicide bombings and lack of liberty are the norm. I thought the satire on the future (newsflash: Prince Harry was reprimanded today for wearing a fake Muslim beard) worked better than the love triangle between the three leads, but others with me went along with it all.

I enticed people to come to it on the premise that it could be the next masterpiece to come out of the National. I don't think we saw the beginnings of Chekhov on Friday night but it could have been a whole lot worse…

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