Sir Tom Stoppard, Bianca Jagger and Vladimir Bukowski lead gala performance of “One Hour Eighteen Minutes” in London in memory of Sergei Magnitsky

November 22, 2012

Last night in Lon­don, three glob­al­ly recog­nised per­son­al­i­ties joined the worlds of enter­tain­ment and media, in a spe­cial gala per­for­mance of the play “One Hour Eigh­teen Min­utes” which focus­es on the final moments in the life of Russ­ian lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky, who was killed in cus­tody in 2009 after uncov­er­ing and expos­ing Russ­ian gov­ern­ment corruption.

Fol­low­ing the per­for­mance of the play, Sir Tom Stop­pard the renowned play­wright, Bian­ca Jag­ger, human rights cam­paign­er, and the for­mer Sovi­et dis­si­dent Vladimir Bukows­ki took to the stage with William Brow­der, CEO Her­mitage Cap­i­tal, to dis­cuss the state of human rights and rule of law in mod­ern Rus­sia and the cam­paign for jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Speak­ing after the per­for­mance, Sir Tom Stop­pard, who has been per­son­al­ly involved with human rights issues and with the sit­u­a­tion of polit­i­cal dis­si­dents in Cen­tral and East­ern Europe for many years, spoke about the lack of shame that is felt by Russ­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cials involved in the Mag­nit­sky affair and how there is no sense of respon­si­bil­i­ty by them for their own actions. He high­light­ed the impuni­ty being shown by the Russ­ian author­i­ties in rela­tion to the Mag­nit­sky case.

Bian­ca Jag­ger, founder and chair of the Bian­ca Jag­ger Human Rights Foun­da­tion and a Coun­cil of Europe Good­will Ambas­sador, spoke about the plight of Pussy Riot. She point­ed out how it exposed the lack of judi­cial inde­pen­dence and how politi­cized the courts in Rus­sia had become. Jag­ger not­ed that while the Mag­nit­sky case was far more egre­gious, it was the case of Pussy Riot that brought the Mag­nit­sky case to a new glob­al audience.

Vladimir Bukows­ki, a lead­ing mem­ber of the dis­si­dent move­ment in the for­mer Sovi­et Union has been in the UK since the 1970s when after nego­ti­a­tions between the USSR and the USA, he was exchanged for the Chilean polit­i­cal pris­on­er, Luis Cor­valán, who had been impris­oned by Augus­to Pinochet. Bukows­ki was also a for­mer can­di­date in the 2007 Russ­ian pres­i­den­tial elec­tion run­ning against Vladimir Putin. Bukows­ki out­lined his opin­ions on how mod­ern day Rus­sia is mir­ror­ing Sovi­et times and all the progress that had begun in the 1990s was now in reverse. Bukows­ki also said that the crack­down on cer­tain civ­il lib­er­ties, the media and the laws restrict­ing NGOs, is tak­ing the coun­try backwards.

“One Hour Eigh­teen Min­utes” weaves togeth­er a dra­mat­ic tale which gives unprece­dent­ed insight into the dark heart of mod­ern-day Rus­sia. The script is based on the hand-writ­ten diaries kept by Sergei Mag­nit­sky dur­ing his 358 days of incar­cer­a­tion doc­u­ment­ing his ill-treat­ment. The title of the play refers to the time that prison guards pre­vent­ed civil­ian medics from enter­ing his cell to reg­is­ter his death. Since Sergei Magnitsky’s death, only one of the offi­cials involved in his per­se­cu­tion has been pros­e­cut­ed. Instead, the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment pro­mot­ed the offi­cers involved and gave them top state honors.

“One Hour Eigh­teen Min­utes” was orig­i­nal­ly writ­ten by Russ­ian play­wright Ele­na Grem­i­na, who is con­sid­ered by many to be the most impor­tant polit­i­cal play­wrights in Rus­sia today. Grem­i­na also co-found­ed Teatr.doc in Moscow, which has been instru­men­tal in fos­ter­ing polit­i­cal play­writ­ing in Rus­sia. She has pre­vi­ous­ly been com­mis­sioned by the Tri­cy­cle The­atre and The Roy­al Court.

Noah Birk­st­ed-Breen, the direc­tor of the pro­duc­tion, won the Chan­nel 4 The­atre Director’s Award in 2006. His the­atre com­pa­ny, Sput­nik, is the only British the­atre com­pa­ny ded­i­cat­ed to stag­ing new Russ­ian drama.

The play will run for two weeks from 13 Novem­ber — 1 Decem­ber 2012.
Per­formed in Eng­lish: Tues — Sat @ 19:30 Sat­ur­day Mati­nee @ 15:00
Venue: New Dio­ra­ma The­atre 15 – 16 Tri­ton Street, Regents Place, Lon­don NW1 3BF
For The­atre PRESS ENQUIRIES or pho­tos please con­tact Mar­gari­ta Osepyan on:
Email: margarita@sputniktheatre.co.uk
Phone: +44 7805 668 060
To book tickets:
http://newdiorama.tsd-aff.com/tickets/slink.buy/e.225I/london/new-diorama-theatre/one-hour-eighteen-minutes.html
Vis­it www.newdiorama.com or call 0207 383 9034

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