Posts

Featured Post

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

Image
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...

Scenes from Soho Sunday 20:13

Image
DSC02480 Originally uploaded by Pauly_ . After the party and the punters have moved on... From the streets to the bars mostly...

Scenes from Soho Pride Sunday 19:37

Image
DSC02473 Originally uploaded by Pauly_ . More gratuitous shots of the punters in Soho...

Scenes from Soho Pride Sunday 19:00

Image
DSC02465 Originally uploaded by Pauly_ . Two things you don't see at London events normally: 1) recycling bins 2) AFL football shorts I was impressed by the efforts to promote more responsible partying by providing bins labelled for cans, bottles, plastics and landfill. The landfill labels were popular with the punters taking them and sticking them on their behinds...

Scenes from Clapham Common Saturday 17:01

Image
Scenes from Clapham Common Saturday 17:01 Originally uploaded by Pauly_ . Walking on past those sprawled about on the grass...

Things to do in London this week...

Look in vain for signs of biodiversity in SW4. Only in central London could it be possible to have no sounds of insects or birds in summer.  Mind you I saw a man attacked on the tube tonight by Mothra (it must have been an attack given he leapt out his seat when the moth fluttered near him)… But I don't think that counts… Take part in a water pistol assassination … It would be small relief from the temperatures and smog… Check out Hampstead Heath for unemployed men from Brighton . I hear it’s a popular pastime in NW3… Drop by at Soho Pride on Sunday. The one day of the year when Westminster Council allows the streets of Soho to be what they should be all year round – pedestrianised… Then again this is the same council that earlier this year finally decided flying a flag from a building did not need planning permission .

Scenes from Leicester Square Tube Tuesday 22:00

Image
Waiting for the next tube. Oh and orange shorts are popular in London this summer. Especially if you are working in dark spaces or resurfacing roads that have melted in this heatwave...

Scenes from near London Bridge Monday 21:44

Image
Scenes from near London Bridge Monday 21:44 Originally uploaded by Pauly_ . Night scenes...

Theatre: The Last 5 Years

Monday night I caught The Last Five Years at the Menier Chocolate Factory . More a song-cycle, the work charts the different perspectives of a relationship between Cathy and Jamie. It travels backwards from the Cathy's point of view and chronologically from the Jamie's over the past five years, with one song – their wedding song – sung by them together. Jason Robert Brown – one of the "new school" of theatrical composers – wrote the piece. It quite engaging with some terrific and amusing songs with lyrics like: "I could have a mansion on the hill I could lease a villa in Seville But it wouldn't be as nice as a summer in Ohio With a gay midget named Karl, playing Tevia and Porgy…" Once again the Chocolate Factory comes up with a great production. The leads Lara Pulver and (Australian) Damian Humbley were terrific. But a combination of things did work against the show for me tonight. The first is that the characters are not that appealing. The show star...