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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...
News: Another day, another suspect package

There is no benefit in staying back working late. I found this out tonight when the high street was closed off due to a suspect package found near the tube station. It turned out to be nothing and the main street has just now reopened. Its just another day of heightened state of alert where every package and every passenger is suspect.

Actually dealing with suspect passengers is easy now... You just get up and move to another carriage. I didn't think I would see this but I saw it on the Victoria line when a drunk man asleep across several seats was causing a little alarm to other passengers, so they got up and moved. Personally drunk men flailing about didn't strike me as likely terrorists.

Tonight as the Victoria line was suspended due to more security alerts this meant I took to walking on foot from Brixton to Stockwell. Along the way I noticed the terrorist safe house in Blair House that was raided overnight and the impromptu memorial of paper signs and dried out flowers outside Stockwell tube station to the Brazilian man killed last Friday.

Oh and it wasn't just an ordinary day going to work either. There were very few people on the tube, but there were six Transport Police officers at my station at 7.15 this morning... I did feel a little self conscious with my big bulky rucksack filled with my gym gear and iPOD wires trailing out of my jacket... But life (and the gym and not to mention the music) still goes on...

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Play ball: Damn Yankees @LandorTheatre

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Damn Yankees at the Landor Theatre is one hell of a fun, sexy show. A great cast of dancers and singers give this show about a man who sells his soul to get on his beloved baseball team (and give them a chance of winning) new legs and balls. It also helps to up the ante with the sexiness with some healthy doses of cleavage and legs (and that's just the men). The musical is a retelling of the Faust story set in the 1950s when the New York Yankees dominated the game.
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