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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...

Scenes from the V&A Museum Wednesday 17:32


Scenes from the V&A Museum Wednesday 17:32
Originally uploaded by Pauly_.

If there is something Londoners love, it is boring looking chairs on display in a museum as part of a justification of modernism. Politics, design and cheap mass production all combined made up for an incredibly dreary and mind-numbing exhibition. Nevertheless the punters are flocking to it, as afterall why wouldn't you pay big money to see a chair like this?

Much more interesting (and quicker to get through) was an exhibition on Che Guevara based around his iconic photograph taken by Alberto Díaz Korda on March 5, 1960. It is considered to be the most reproduced image in the history of photographs and whether or not it is true, it has become a symbol of pop culture. The original photo (and contact sheet) is on display along with the countless t-shirts, posters, ice cream wrappers, handbags, album covers that either used the image or were inspired from it. What is it about that scruffy-looking revolutionary turned Minister of Cuban government that captures the punter's imagination?

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