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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: His Dark Materials Part II

Snapped up a front row seat to see His Dark Materials Part II at the Olivier theatre. Based on the stories of Phillip Pullman, they have turned it into two three hour plays that cover epic journeys, religion, morality, good and evil and so on and so on...

I figured Part I may have covered a lot of exposition in its three hour length, and so the three hours of Part II may have been more about the action. It actually doesn't work out like that (given both parts have different stories to tell) but anyway.

Sitting in front row meant that as the stage rose and sunk and moved around you did tend to miss out on the action, but you also got the sense at times you were part of the action. It was quite a spectacle and something that really used all the tricks of the Olivier Theatre. Even more of a spectacle were some of the actors and puppeteers, (although that has less to do with the overall appeal of the show and more about my personal taste)...

It was an amazing production and deserves a TV series or movie like the Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings franchises, although religion gets a bit of a battering in these stories (depending on how you interpret it of course, but that didn't stop Jerry Springer The Opera having to cancel its National Tour) so that might not go down well with the usual suspects.

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