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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: Fool For Love

Tonight I caught Fool For Love which is a play Sam Shepard wrote in the 1980s. It is a very compact play that lasted less than ninety minutes and where the main characters – played by Juliette Lewis and Martin Henderson - air some family issues. Shepard's themes are always the same but the way they are written are so entertaining and engaging.

Juliette Lewis, known more for her rock singing than her movie roles nowadays, seemed to be a little off tonight. Maybe there have been too much throaty singing of late which was a pity as you got the impression she thought she was projecting.

The Apollo Theatre isn't the most pleasant of theatres to be in on a warm evening. The seats are too small and the air conditioning is non-existent. There was also a series of unnecessary delays to pick up tickets and curtain-up was fifteen minutes late. Part of the problem I observed was that the agent to one of the cast members was trying to pick up a comp seat and figured that he was important enough to make twenty other people wait, particularly as he started to engage in theatre banter with the house manager and blocked access to the box office windows. As I was next in line a gentle shove was required from me to move the asshole on…

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Play ball: Damn Yankees @LandorTheatre

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