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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...

Cheap laughs and nothing fancy: Judith Lucy


Judith Lucy is a household name in Australia. She has done a show, she has done films, she is on crap television like the show above. But until the 1 December she is London at the Soho Theatre doing the thing that made her famous in the first place. Stand up comedy. It is just her, a microphone and some very sensible shoes because as she tells the audience, "My feet are fucked!" She is brutally honest too...

Naturally being an Australian act, the audience will be dominated by Aussies desperate for some cultural references from down under (this was part of the incentive to go, along with being reminded of her talent after recently seeing her on film as Merle the racist pub owner in the film The Sapphires). But none of this should put you off.

When Lucy is interrogating the audience she is in her element with her ability to draw laughs out of what could be the most innocent of responses from unwitting audience members in the first few rows of the theatre. You are wise to sit further back unless you want to be part of the show. The rest of her routine covers minor celebrities, gifts of soap and candles and vaginal discharge. Even if not all the gags work (or frighten the men in the audience), as the title of her show hints, it is nothing fancy but good stand up from someone who knows how to deliver it.

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