VAULT’s festival of live work-in-progress shows, A Pinch of VAULT, returns for a third year showcasing new works from leading independent performance makers taking place at The Glitch and venues across Waterloo and Bankside from 12th February – 10th March.
Track our full coverage of A Pinch of Vault Festival 2024 below:
Picks of the week
Interview: Tegan Verheul on Surrogates
“The more I researched, the more I was terrified about the types of AI already available and already in use–a lot of the dystopian elements in the play are not potential or theoretical, they’re products and processes already in use.”
Interview: Marie Hamilton on Madonna on the Rocks
“Madonna on the Rocks is dark, empowering and very funny new musical about motherhood and making art at the end of the world. It’s a joyous relinquishing of all the mama guilt and expectations society (and we ourselves) pile onto new parents.”
Review: Surrogates, The Spacement at the Glitch
“The play has the tension, scale and pace of a Netflix drama, à la Black Mirror – the type of dystopia that feels within reach in the not-too-distant future.”
Interview: Hannah Ali Khan on Cancer B*tch!
“Telling any story is daunting, but sharing something so personal is especially scary. As much as I’ve crafted the play and added elements that didn’t really happen, a lot of the emotional beats are the ones that I went through.
“It’s quite vulnerable to have this going in front of an audience, and there’s always a worry that people won’t get it”
RJ Hunter on their Stupid Sexy Poem Show
“Stupid Sexy Poem Show is exactly what it says on the tin. It’s a poetry show, but not as you know them!! A big queer romp through identity, relationships and the stupidly sexy, and maybe even a wee heartfelt moment, if you’re lucky”
Eleanor Crosswell on Ember
“I had become both aware and frustrated that my female friends who date men all seemed to share a commonality of experience, in that most – if not all – had experienced unhealthy relationships at some point, and I felt pretty angry that was the case. So I started writing a monologue.”
Elena Sirett on Maenad
“I have always been fascinated by contemporary updates of ancient stories. By bringing the maenad into the modern day I aimed to use this figure to explore gender, sexuality, addiction and mental health”
Daniel Nicholas on Art To Die For
“The audience joins detective Danny Nix’ to interview each of the suspects and compete in games to get clues to solve [a] murder. It’s a lot of fun and hopefully an Agtha Christie meets Taskmaster kind of vibe.”
Lil Wenker on Bangtail
“To me, my dad’s love of the iconic tough man is one of these small tragedies. It’s charming and beautiful, for such a nice guy to long for such rugged heroism. And this kind of dream is perfect for the clown.”
Madeleine MacMahon on Plane Jane
“My debut stand up hour comes off the back of a pretty mad 2019 where I fell out of a plane and starting walking again in time to try stand up just as the world went mad.”
Josh Glanc on Hubba Hubba (based on a true story)
“Its based on me – I’m the true story – I know that sounds vague, and mostly because I’m still working it out – but its about me trying to reconcile a lot of feelings about family and my career – but mostly its just really stupid fun”
Yiannis Cove on Everyone’s a Critic
“Everyone’s a Critic is a podcast where people pick a badly reviewed movie that they love and defend it to me. It came about in the pandemic when I was stuck in my flat with nothing to do and wanted a creative outlet. “
Kate-Lois Elliott on How to Belong Without Joining a Cult
“The thing that drew me to this form of comedy was watching other people tell their personal stories on stage. I have a huge amount of respect for club comics but coming from a theatre background, I value the storytelling element. I love watching someone say something that came from their brain and thinking, ‘Oh, I feel that too, I’m not weird.’”
Liam Rees on The Land That Never Was
“It tells the story of Gregor MacGregor, a Scottish conman, who made up a country and sold it to a bunch of would-be colonialists. It’s utterly bonkers and most people assume that I’ve made it all up but this is the part of the story that’s 100%, totally true (I promise).”
Amy Webber on No Previous Experience
“This could be the first ever show to combine pop songs, operatic vocals and live networking…. in fact, right here, right now, I’m going to say that IT IS!”
Mattia Sedda on CHOIN
“It’s a very stupid show that talks of a real dream of mine that I have had for over ten years and for which I put all the resources and energy I had. Which was, to be an actor. An International actor.”
Nathan Cassidy on International Man of Mestory
” it’s not about the Austin Powers films, but it is about the past, unfreezing the past and freezing this moment in time together. How can we have fun in this chaotic world? The world is in a terrible place but I promise you that for this hour we are going to have as much fun as possible”
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Why not look back at our full coverage including reviews and interviews of Vault Festival 2023 here:
