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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...

Last chance for something completely different: Karagula @wearepigdog


In it’s final week in a disused bar in Tottenham is Philip Ridley’s Karagula.

It’s an amibitious dystopian work that has been baffling audiences for the past month. There are various worlds coliding in the piece. Time and narrative shifts to tell a story of rebellion against totalitarian regimes.



One regime insists the world should be 1950s apple pie and milkshakes. Anyone who challenges this gets shot. Or they just shoot people anyway. Another world dispenses with all sorts of personal traits and wears white suits and talk calmly and malevolently...

There are also tales from primitive societies and what could be the forerunner of a new religion.

Anyway it’s ambitious, mind boggling physical theatre in an unforgiving space... Not Tottenham, but the cavernous empty Styx bar space which serves as the backdrop for this crazy adventure.


I caught an early preview of it and I have avoided milkshakes ever since. But you can catch it and have a Neopolitan-style pizza in the forecourt of the venue before the show. Or spend time there at interval wondering what’s it all about.

A production from emerging company PIGDOG, which aims to use experimental forms of theatre to explore a range of issues, including accessibility, equality and gender politics.

Karagula concludes this week on 9 July. It certainly is something for those that like their theatre to be a little bit different...

Photo credit: production photos by Lara Genovese / Naiad Photography


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