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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: All Bob's Women



It isn't every time when you go to the theatre that there is a deathly silence at the end of the show... Only to be broken by somebody in the audience sighing and exclaiming, "Well... THAT was interesting..." But such was the case Sunday afternoon at the wake last performance of the musical All Bob's Women. The show opened Tuesday and posted closing notices the next day. Translated from an Italian show that apparently ran in Milan for months, it is billed as a sexy musical comedy. The problem with the show was that it was not sexy, not musical and it wasn't funny. But no point flogging a dead horse. The Evening Standard, The Stage and (most memorably) The Telegraph cover why it is a disaster. I was surprised by little things like:
  • The actors had been rehearsing this show for many weeks
  • Concert-like body mics and deafening sound to match it
  • Half a taxi-cab appearing on stage
  • Some weird woman in the audience who cackled every few minutes (I was half-expecting one of the actors would shout out, "Would you keep it down mum?")
Part of the story involves Bob (played by Samuel Oatley) dressing up as a woman to get to know the secret desires of the women he wants to bed. His drag act and clothes worn reminded me of Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari in Bosom Buddies, which may not have made it to Britain so I have included it above. The rest of the story didn't make much sense so I decided for my own entertainment value to fill in the gaps... Bob was a secret agent working for the enemy to corrupt England's slappers. He would find the most unattractive women and mess with their minds until they sang off-key before moving onto the next one. That worked for me.

Large portions of this play Samuel Oatley was parading around in pants. Which was not bad. After Julian Ovenden in his boxers on Friday, the gays in Clapham Saturday and Oatley in his briefs on Sunday it has been quite a pants weekend. I think that is something I can live with. As for the show... It lives on in Youtube thanks to West End Live (if you can put up with the poor camera work and overbearing sax).

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