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Searching undeterred: The Gift @ParkTheatre

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I recently had a few parcels go missing from where I live. The first parcel disappeared without a trace. The second parcel's contents were removed, and the box was left alone in the lobby. It's one of the things that you have to put up with living in central London. Apart from complaining to the delivery company and filing a police report, it crossed my mind to think about what would happen if I sent myself something rather unpleasant for a future parcel thief to open up. Well, Dave Florez's new work, The Gift, is in this line of thinking, except that the lead receives an anonymous gift of a turd in the mail rather than sending it to himself. It is lovingly gift-wrapped in a cake box from a posh north London bakery. It's a fascinating and hilarious three-hander currently playing at Park Theatre .  Colin (Nicholas Burns) is a little obsessive at the best of times. He doesn't let things drop quickly and is obsessed with the details behind anything and everythi...

My night with Ben (and Kam and Russ and AJ and Simon): Jock night @7DialsPlayhouse


Some of the PR to Jock Night says London is about to get a taste of Manchester with this piece. You could interpret that many ways, but it does feel as if you become immersed in a particular Mancunian world of sex, drugs and Coronation Street. Written and directed by Adam Zane, it's a sharp-tongued, drug-fuelled odyssey into an unconventional world with more than a few sharp observations about life in the gay ghetto. It's currently playing at the 7 Dials Playhouse. 

The play is set in Ben's bedroom and revolves around a famous party night in Manchester where the dress code requires jocks or sportswear. After the party finishes, then come the drugs. Then the sex and then the chillout, and then they do it all over again. But Ben (David Paisley) is also looking for love - albeit in all the wrong places. 

His friends are Kam (Sam Goodchild), a quick-witted man from Sussex who found a home in Manchester. Then there's Russell (Matthew Gent), a gym bunny and aspiring Instagram influencer. A night out ends with AJ (Levi Payne) joining them. And then, a moderately known porn performer Simon (George Hughes), answers a dating app message, and there are five. But AJ's from Doncaster and doesn't understand about playing safely. Simon is out of control and struggling with multiple addictions. With such a premise, expect only an unconventional ending. 

Yet, for a story that involves sex, and a lot of it, it's not a particularly erotic story. Instead, interspersed with Victoria Wood one-liners and the various drama arcs of Coronation Street, there are more digs at gay life in the Village. The endless hookups, the multiple dating apps, the drugs to get you up, take you down and keep you from catching something. When the newly written second act comes around, the message is clear that the party is over. 

The cast works hard to deliver the comedy and drama, bearing their souls as they bare their buttocks in various jockstraps throughout the play's two hours.

But Zane has given the audience a gentle ride through the wild, crazy hedonism. With a mix of filthy talk, innuendo and bawdy laughs, he throws out a few life lessons and wry observations. Particularly as the play juxtaposes all the freedoms that gay men can enjoy post-Stonewall, post-AIDS crisis while remaining trapped in a culture partly of their own making. And in doing so, we potentially have an important new gay play for our time. Time will tell whether it was all just a phase. 

Written and directed by Adam Zane, Jock Night is at the 7 Dials Playhouse until 4 November. 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️


Photos by Dawn Kilner 

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