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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: The Power of Yes

Despite gusts of wind and snow, what looked like a full house was there on Saturday night to see David Hare's new play The Power of Yes at the National Theatre. Not even freezing conditions could prevent National Theatre audiences from seeing a lecture on the financial crisis. Well we're that sort of audience I suppose.

The Power of Yes has been playing since September, but rather than see it early on in its run and be bewildered about it (such as I was with his Stuff Happens show), I waited a bit, hoping it would be trimmed and better formed by now. It probably was.

David Hare is a bit of a star writer nowadays so it seemed to make sense to make him the focus of the show. Its a show about a playwright trying to understand the credit crunch and the recession of the last two years for a play he is being commissioned by the National Theatre to write. I guess being a star playwright, you can do that sort of thing. Some say Enron the play treats a similar subject matter far more creatively but having not yet seen it, I had to be content with the less inspired premise...

Of course if you were the slightest bit interested in the recession of the past two years, you would be familiar with the subject matter from reading the Financial Times. Although here it seems so much better written... And better looking than a pink sheet with its cool steel set... And sassier. I don't think anyone in the FT used the word cunt to describe the former head of Royal Bank of Scotland.

Of course watching this you could either feel smug and satisfied like all good nights out at the National Theatre can make you do, or feel just incredibly depressed that the economy in Britain is... Stuffed... It was easy to feel both...

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