After a couple of years away from the venue I return to the original pub theatre for the first time since it moved out of the actual pub: The King's Head is now located in a larger purpose-built theatre a few feet away from its old home - horizontally at least, vertically the new sub-sub-sub basement is a bit more of a trek. The show bringing me back is
Firebird, the queer love story of Cold War Russia from Sergey Fetisov's memoir, probably best known here for the recent film version. In fact Richard Hough's stage adaptation is credited as being based as much on Peeter Rebane & Tom Prior's screenplay as it is the book: I've not read the book or seen the film yet, so approached the story of a lieutenant in trouble for touching his privates fresh; but soon got the feeling that Hough is relying on a certain amount of preexisting familiarity with the characters.
