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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...

Movies: Sex and the City


Sex and the City the movie, originally uploaded by annalyn.

I nearly didn't catch Sex and The City on Thursday night with Fliss as the first three cinemas I tried, it had already sold out... It is obviously the movie of the week. Fortunately the O2 centre had some seats and so that is where we caught it. With around 700 die hard fans of the series. Who were mostly women. With a smattering of self-conscious boyfriends... And a few gays... Fliss had to explain to her men-folk that she was going to this movie with her gay friend because she knew they wouldn't want to see it. One of them is jealous of our relationship but that's just because he doesn't have a filthy mind or a sense of humour...

Actually I was disappointed with the gay turnout for a movie about (to borrow from a Simpsons episode) four gay men living in New York city... Played by women... But then again this is North Greenwich... As the film started people started cheering. I don't understand the cheering. I think these women need to get out more...

Anyway is the film any good? Well being a fan of the series (having watched every episode at least twice) I guess I could forgive its flaws such as:

  • Lack of credible plot and ludicrous dialogue
  • Really unflattering lighting of the leading ladies (is this a trend nowadays to make ladies on screen look as bad as possible? Like they are getting on, but do we need to see how the plastic surgery and botox is desperately trying to work?)
  • Wondering if Kim Cattrall was wearing horse hair (was this SJP's revenge for the fact they hate each other?)
  • Two overlong clothing montages that lacked the style of The Sweetest Thing
  • A collection of the most dreary pop tracks ever inflicted on a chick flick. When Al Green starts singing as two characters meet on the Brooklyn Bridge, you will want to reach for an (empty) popcorn bucket
Still there were some funny moments, and it was nice to see Jennifer Hudson on screen again (even if she just breezes in to fix Carrie's website, give pat advice and get her a decent mobile phone). And while the other male characters are sidelined to bit parts, at least David Eigenberg as Steve manages to prove on the big screen he can still look good naked. Alas one can't say the same for Big, Harry or Smith... And I can't recall seeing a movie before which so trashes a leading man character to the point that you leave the film thinking, "Eeew... she ended up with him!"

All these flaws with the movie don't really matter much however. Even Sex on a bad day is better than nothing . This movie is also going to be huge because all we have had to watch for the past four years are episodes of Desperate Housewives... Interestingly on screen, the year is missing from any dates that are shown (such as emails, newspapers etc). It does feel like the film is trapped in a time warp. It even backs the wrong Democrat... There are references to Hilary on the film but none about Obama. Things have changed since 2004, even if the writers and producers assumed they had not... Anyone who isn't a fan or the series should steer well clear (and girls who drag their boyfriends to this movie will owe them big time)...

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