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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...
Music: Musical Theatre Students

Thursday night caught a performance of this year's Musical Theatre Students at the Royal Academy of Music. It was ninety minutes of songs from musical theatre from this year's class that includes Ian H Watkins (or H as he is known). He wasn't a star for this performance however - it was the class and the ensemble on show.

I went with a group of musical aficionados which meant while they were appreciative of a good performance, they was also pretty ruthless when some individuals chose songs that just didn't work for them. Beware the group of musical aficionados if the costumes look too tight, there is a milky white stain on your trousers, or if the song isn't right for you...

On the other hand I was wondering whether they were getting marks for degree of difficulty, such as the man who couldn't pronounce "H" singing the Billy Joel song "Say Goodbye to (H)ollywood" or the woman who just didn't have the notes or the oomph to sing the song "If you hadn't but you did". Although for the odd voice crack or notes left out here or there, there were so many other amazing performances and the show was so well put together for the variety of different musical theatre styles covered.

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