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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: The Fairy Queen (Purcell)

After Glyndebourne on Saturday I went to Royal Albert Hall on Sunday to see a BBC Proms concert of Purcell's The Fairy Queen. As it was a concert it was just the music (so it was only two hours) and it was a very enjoyable way to spend an early Sunday evening.

A had two tickets, one in the stalls and one in the circle. Rather than take up my suggestion of paper-scissors-rock for determining who sat where, he suggested that we swap seats at interval. That far more sensible suggestion turned out to be best as the seat in the circle provided a great vantage point to see everything, while the seat in the stalls was better for proximity.

Purcell in the cavernous space of the RAH may not be the best setting for this music, but it was nice to see it, and it reminded me that between now and mid-September I should be getting to more Proms concerts.

After the concert and as we left the hall to find somewhere to have supper, A spotted a few celebrities in the neighborhood, but I was too busy with those little Purcell ditties running about in my head to notice. Those things can seriously cause you to be distracted. Well that was my excuse for the evening...

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