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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...
Reflections on a Thursday in London

As the search begins for lost loved ones I recall going through my work yesterday. There was enough to do to not think about the events as they were unfolding. Taking calls, placing calls, locating people, background research, typing messages. It all filled time.

But the scale of it all hit me around lunchtime. That was when I first saw the bomb damage at Tavistock Square on the CNN webiste, which is just a couple of blocks from where I live. I recognised the street by the trees overhanging the road as they are so leafy and bright green. I walk down that street on the weekends on my roundabout way into Covent Garden. It isn't the most attractive part of London. The area is not really anything remarkable about this area at all, but because I live there it is familiar. I had this strong feeling of "That's my neighborhood!". Suddenly the atrocity has a very very localised feel to it.

Then to see the wreck of the red bus, its bright coloured seats and orange grab rails it is again familiar. I recall what it is like to be crammed in on a peak hour bus in central London. It is a typical London experience. And then you see that its frame is twisted and the grab rails are flailing about. You can imagine what it must have been like, but then you can't.

It is interesting however as you think well I never travel THAT way to work as if to reassure yourself that you were never in harms way. It is always entirely possible that you could be doing anything on a morning on your way to work, but you weren't.

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