The Gift by Dave Florez. Park Theatre, 13 Clifton Terrace, Finsbury Park, London N4 to 01 March 2025, 4☆☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.
Photo Credit: Richard Southgate.
The Gift by Dave Florez. Park Theatre, 13 Clifton Terrace, Finsbury Park, London N4 to 01 March 2025,
4☆☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.
“Choc full of jokes.”
Colin has received an unsolicited parcel delivered by the Royal Mail of a box from the local posh patisserie. The trouble is the contents.It is not a chocolate cake by a dollop of excrement and there is no indication of who has sent it. Being paranoic by nature, and not helped by his sister Lisa and her blokeish husband Brian – he is a [articular hindrance – Colin sets about reviewing just who might among people he knows, works with, does not get on with might have sent it. Dave Florez has come up with a swiftly moving three hander which keeps producing fresh revelations about who did what and why and keeps the audience both taken aback and weak from laughing. Director Adam Meggido has kept the trio on the move – there is nothing static about the goings on and all three find plenty to do – not all of which happens before our eyes. But Colin's paranoia leads him into doing the most amazing things. The language gets a little ripe at times – there is a riff using the C word which would once not have been heard in any theatre – and the box and its contents, which we fortunately never see, remains the fourth character in the cast throughout. I am not quite convinced that Laura Haddock, who plays Lisa, could be a sister of Nicholas Burn's frenzied Colin, pill popping and imagining the worst with abandon, but she dazzles all the same. Lisa and Alex have a world of their own as at one point they leave Colin to get on with the search and go on a retreat to Spain, except that it turns out not to be the kind held by the Anglican or Catholic churches. It also is a mistake as left alone Colin is out of control. You could say he creates quite a shit storm and banned from visiting the patisserie. That Alex has something to do with it all provides the first half curtain – given the size of the cast that is pretty predictable. But what comes after is not. This one deserves to run and run. But it is going to be hard to look a chocolate eclair, let along a choccolate cake, in the face ever again.
Cast
Nicholas Burns – Colin
Laura Haddock – Lisa
Alex Price – Brian
Creatives
Director – Adam Meggido
Designer – Sarah Perks
Lighting Designer – David Howe
Composer & Sound Designer – Amanda Priestley
Fight Director – Dan 'DJ' Johnson
Costume Supervisor – Ilaria Mosca
Play, theatre. 28 January 2025.
Photo Credit: Richard Southgate.
