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Sleight of hand: The Fabulist @charingcrossthr

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Billed as a musical comedy, The Fabulist is actually a rare chance to see Giovanni Paisiello’s rarely performed light opera, The Imaginary Astrologers , translated and updated to Mussolini’s Italy. With sublime music, fine singing and a bit of additional silliness thrown in for good measure, it’s a welcome addition to the choices available on the West End. It’s currently playing at Charing Cross Theatre . In this update, the action moved to Italy in 1929. A magician (or, as he prefers to be called, Fabulist), Julian is on the run from both the fascists and the Catholic Church. On the run, he stumbles on a film shoot and dazzles the screenwriter Clarice with his charm while her sister tries to complete a series of mildly subversive historical films. What will win in a battle of ideas between science and magic, the church and the Fabulist? It’s an evening of light operatic comedy, so there are no prizes for guessing.  Experts in clerical fascism and fascist mysticism may find some of the
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Sweat shops: The Great Divide @Finborough

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  The Great Divide uses the worst industrial accident in history as the backdrop to explain the lives and times of some of the workers who lived and perished in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.  It is playing on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday at the  Finborough Theatre  until 20 September.  What is exciting about Alix Sobler's piece is how fragments of stories comes together to tell a much bigger one about immigration, dreams and unionisation against the backdrop of the deadliest workplace disaster in American history.    The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was on the lower east side of Manhattan located on the top floors of an 11 storey building. Most of its workers were migrants working for low pay and long hours. The custom and practice in factories was to lock doors and limit exits to prevent theft. Smoking was banned but people did anyway.  So when fire broke out on 25 March 1911, the combination of flammable materials and no means of escape let to a fire of such intensity that
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