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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...

Talking pictures: Reputation @TheOtherPalace

In the dog eat dog world of new musicals, a brand new one has arrived at the studio space of The Other Palace. It’s about the dog eat dog world of writers and plagiarism during the switch from silent pictures to talkies. A story about a small-time hoodlum who passes off scripts as his sounds like an excellent premise for a show. And some good parts make up the show. But probably not enough to take this show further in its current form.

The good parts include the cast, which often high kicks and dances across the small stage. There’s Maddy Banks who plays Michelle. A young girl at a finishing school in France who spends her time in between learning how to be a proper lady writing her first screenplay. And Jeremy Secomb playing Freddy Larceny. A small-time crook, who passes off scripts as his own to Hollywood studios. And there’s Ed Wade as Archie the lawyer trying to trap Freddy in between making eyes for Michelle. Each of them have their moments throughout the piece.


Alas, Freddy Larceny is no Max Bialystock from The Producers. It would have been much more fun if he owed his success to little old ladies and stories of dubious quality. Secomb seems wasted in this role, spending a lot of time with his back to the audience sitting in a chair.

Michelle hasn’t written Springtime For Hitler either but instead some “Oscar-worthy” script, so that’s not much fun either. The piece seems to miss the potential that during the switch between silent movies and talking pictures, the quality of the work dived. Afterall people found it more novel to hear people talking crap over the sophisticated dialogue-free stories that had been created up to that point.

The music is tuneful and catchy, but the songs don’t move the story forward. And there’s too much interest in the love story over the other elements of the piece. But this piece seems to be a labour of love has had a long gestation period by writer/composer Alick Glass. Perhaps there’s time to shape it further into something more substantial.

With direction, musical direction and arrangements by Warren Wills, Reputation the Musical concludes its run at The Other Palace on 14 November.

⭐️⭐️

Photos by Donato

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