Couple Katie and Dan await-with great trepidation- Nick’s arrival in this queasy three-hander from writer/performer Laura Mead. Clinically depressed Dan, bored and fidgety for new experiences after suffering the extreme, limiting effects of pandemic lockdowns, has canvassed for a partner to join him and Katie in a threesome. This is not, he is quick to … More VANILLA – REVIEW – VAULT FESTIVAL
Lady Aria Grey (AKA Callum Tilbury) is ‘not a regular widow, she’s a cool widow’. Grey Widow is a drag show like you’ve never seen before. Still incorporating the fun, camp quality of drag performance, but elevating this with a melodramatic and at times emotive monologue. Lady Aria Grey walks down the aisle all dressed … More GREY WIDOW – REVIEW – VAULT FESTIVAL
By The Balls Theatre Company is a womxn and queer-led theatre group. Their debut production, Goodbye ’89 is all about chosen family, that period in life when friends are family, and standing up for what is right. We meet this group of young women on New Year’s Eve in 1989, as they prepare to protest. … More GOODBYE ’89 – REVIEW – VAULT FESTIVAL
Good Grief tackles the subject of death, a taboo topic that’s not discussed nearly enough within our society. The multi-award-winning theatre company Ugly Bucket have created something unique and extraordinary in this show centred around a dying man, who asks his friends to create a show about death for him. Sascha Gilmour and Kirsty Barlow’s … More GOOD GRIEF – REVIEW – VAULT FESTIVAL
Two performers enter the space, they introduce themselves as Chloe and Lekhani, and from the start audience participation is incorporated, as they ask audience members to arrange the set for them. Then the play begins, with the two assuming their roles as Bridgette and Amara respectively. These dips in and out of character prevail throughout … More BURNOUT – REVIEW – VAULT FESTIVAL
Society’s obsession with the true crime genre knows no bounds, so Pillow Talk Theatre have capitalised upon this by creating Criminally Untrue, a completely improvised and never before seen true crime documentary. Upon entering the space, a projection of a board of sticky notes immediately grabs your attention. The notes display: people, suspects, locations, clues, … More CRIMINALLY UNTRUE: AN IMPROVISED TRUE CRIME DOCUMENTARY – REVIEW – VAULT FESTIVAL
Fuck Off And Leave Me Alone is actress Juliet Cowan’s first foray into the world of stand-up comedy. The show premiered last year at the Bush Theatre and came to the Vault Festival for the final weekend. Over an hour Cowan takes us through life as a middle-aged woman, with hatred of the patriarchy at … More FUCK OFF AND LEAVE ME ALONE – REVIEW – VAULT FESTIVAL
PUBLIC, a new pop/rock musical created by queer-led theatre collective Stroud & Notes, was presented at Vault Festival as a work in progress production, shown to a public audience for the first time. Stroud & Notes is led by multi-hyphenate Kyla Stroud, who has collaborated with fellow Theatre Maker Hannah Sands, along with movement director … More PUBLIC THE MUSICAL – REVIEW – VAULT FESTIVAL
How can we expect villains to change if we continue to treat them like villains? This is the question posed by the comedy-drama Villain, Interrupted. Produced by Dolls in Amber, this play was originally staged in 2019, and between the pandemic and the cancellation of Vaults last year is finally being seen at the festival in … More VILLAIN, INTERRUPTED – REVIEW – VAULT FESTIVAL
Grubby Comedy is a double act of Rosie Nicholls and Sullivan Beau Brown. They debuted Grubby Little Mitts at Brighton Fringe last year, before journeying up to the Edinburgh Fringe, and now they are on a tour of the UK. The show opens with the duo running on stage and performing a dance routine which … More GRUBBY LITTLE MITTS – REVIEW – VAULT FESTIVAL
Please be sure to look at the content warnings displayed on the Vault Festival website as needed. Put on by Pink Sky, a queer theatre company, Rapture makes its grand return to the stage for two nights only at the Vault Festival. This is my second time seeing the show (the first being at The … More RAPTURE – REVIEW – VAULT FESTIVAL
And on the sixth day, God created Manchester… A Manchester Anthem proved such a hit at this year’s Vault Festival that it’s back by popular demand for the festival’s final weekend. Tommy (Tom Claxton) is a young working-class Mancunian. He lives with his mum, although the two are like ships that pass in the night, … More A MANCHESTER ANTHEM – REVIEW – VAULT FESTIVAL
Oh, how I love a good preview. Upon entering The Flair Ground, you find yourself in a typical cabaret environment. There is the bar with a ‘one night only’ opportunity to ‘make it spritz’, sweet mix-and-match tables and chairs and more traditional seating. The stage is simple, clean, and glittering with disco balls. I found … More ACID’S REIGN – REVIEW – VAULT FESTIVAL
In the realm of visual art, abstraction pulls away from meaning and into pure experience. Lines, shape and colour take the place of figuration, and story gives way to a sensory flow of feeling. Or so the story goes. In You Are Going to Die, Adam Scott-Rowley presents a series of nude vignettes, starting with … More YOU ARE GOING TO DIE – REVIEW – VAULT FESTIVAL
What a babe! Thanyia Moore, master storyteller, delivers a devastating and eye-opening account of a month full to the brim with horror and ecstasy: the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. So comfortable in her skin, she delivers the epic along with the personal, tragic, and light, all with the tender charm and authenticity of an old friend. … More THANYIA MOORE: AUGUST – REVIEW – VAULT FESTIVAL
If the Vault Festival had a midnight strand, surely this cracked and crazed production from Scram & Scrum would be foremost in its programme. Deliriously demented, the work cheerfully follows its own brazen logic to the extreme. The three protagonists-Beaver, Frog and Peregrine Falcon (he bristles at the insult of being referred to casually as … More HUTCHY THE HARE – REVIEW – VAULT FESTIVAL
Abby Vicky-Russell’s one-person show, Gush has gone from strength to strength, with a sell-out debut, plus a run at Soho Theatre, it’s not hard to see why – this is a masterclass in character comedy. As the audience takes their seats to watch a contemporary dance piece about pomegranates and vulvas, a leak appears above … More GUSH – REVIEW – VAULT FESTIVAL
Written by Theo Toksvig Stewart, a play with a title so long I can only hope they were not charged per character for their poster – The Play With The Really Long Slightly Poetic Sounding Title That’s Actually A Bit Too Long But That’s OK Because It’s About Something Important… or, She Howls Kelp. This show … More THE PLAY WITH THE REALLY LONG SLIGHTLY POETIC SOUNDING TITLE… – REVIEW – VAULT FESTIVAL
Rose and Ruby are flatmates, we watch them hanging out, reading tarot cards, discussing queer imposter syndrome, and their disappointment at queer spaces across the city closing – a lack of places they can express themselves within and feel safe doing so. Behind the two is a white sheet with Ruby Ingleheart’s oil designs projected … More BELINDA – REVIEW – VAULT FESTIVAL
The word albatross can be used metaphorically to describe a psychological burden. This show perfectly captures the psychological burden of trying to discover who you are and your place in the world. Don’t Shoot The Albatross is a one-person performance of a queer monologue, portraying Alby’s navigation of their 20s, including dating, queerness, and living … More DON’T SHOOT THE ALBATROSS – REVIEW – VAULT FESTIVAL
