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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...
Catching up

Caught up with a former work colleague from Australia today. Over lunch discussed various sundry issues and gossip including:
  • Had I stayed in my old job I would now be out of a job as the office is being shut down. Well there was no chance of that happening but it is nice to have it reaffirmed that every now and then one can make the right choice in life...
  • It was a cold day today. I needed to have this pointed out to me as I work on the 10 deg rule. If it is above 10 deg then I am not cold, even if it is windy or wet.
  • There is a difference between a café laté and a skinny flat white. The latter is not sold here but I had suggested that there was no real difference in London between the two, until ordering coffee after lunch proved me wrong.
  • Swapping notes on the various artsy things we had seen. I pointed out that I was going to see On The Town again tonight as I had seen it previously in preview, and in the cheap seats. Had a much smarter seat in the stalls second time around so one could see Aaron Lazar, Caroline O'Connor and Adam Garcia much better...

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