by Grace Bouchard
Heart-thumping music blaring, performers Ayden Brouwers and Lizzie Morris take the stage. As they dance towards each other, vibrant disco lights hitting their slow moving bodies, they ask “How do we look?” and “How do you look?”. It is at this point that we realise why we are here. We are here to look, and to observe. Simply through the act of being in the room with them, I am complicit in demonstrating the impact the cis gaze has on transgender bodies.
By Matthew McGregor-Morales
“We’re going to go with intuition”, Ruby Wednesday tells a lady from Chiswick, as ambience-maestros Yoshi peel out the start of a haunting, rhythmic dive into minor keys and mayhem. Returning to VAULT Festival after a break-out 2019 run, The Feathers of Daedalus have taken Tarot up a notch, blending their signature circus and dance performances with audience readings and a soul funk soundtrack with climaxes a-plenty.
By Evangeline Cullingworth
Jack is hurtling forwards, desperately striving to fix mistakes from their childhood, arguments with their girlfriend, and now climate change. This movement needs them, and they need an excuse to keep moving. We meet Jack in the middle of the London Rebellion, the 10 days of peaceful civil disobedience organised by Extinction Rebellion in April last year. They jump onto their bicycle late at night and begin to hurtle forward, away from the scrutiny they’re under at home.
By Laura Kressly
It’s election day in Lovelyville, a place that lives up to its name and is the exact opposite of Britain at the moment. Its citizens are friendly, cheerful and compassionate, and when Nick Dallas is reelected president, things should keep ticking on quietly as usual. Of course, people can’t leave well enough alone and good things never last forever – Mr and Mrs Ubu have just arrived in town with sinister ambitions.
by Nastazja Somers
When I leave Velvel Havel by the Czech Theatre on the Balustrade, I burst out laughing every few minutes. I am walking on air. Air that is filled with ideas, pictures, smells, but above all, this air is home. It’s a revolution of sorts.
by Laura Kressly
It initially seems like a harmless premise – after a tween boy in early 90s New Jersey is embarrassed in front of the girl he has a crush on, he makes a wish that he was bigger on a fortune telling game at the carnival passing through town. On waking up the next morning, he discovers he’s still 12 years old, but in the body of a grown man. Though his mum chases him out of the house, his best friend Billy offers to help him track down the machine and reverse the spell.
by Amy Toledano
“Fame!” – we all know the infamous song. The lyrics, “I’m gonna live forever, I’m gonna learn how to fly, HIGH” are not well known just because of the original 1980 film, but because of the subsequent television series, film remake and musicals that followed. The title song is a good one by all accounts, however this revival of the 1988 musical serves up little else that’s at its level.
by Laura Kressly
“Welcome to the glitter zone!”
I’m greeted exuberantly by one of the actors, who are mid-yoga warmup when I arrive. Though I try my best to quietly enter their rehearsal space, I’m flustered by a series of train and tube delays that mean I arrived nearly half an hour after I intended and it’s impossible for me to not be noticed. I self-consciously wave, smile, and settle into the chair that’s closest to the door. There are musical instruments, costume, sound equipment and lots of ‘stuff’ everywhere in their Tooting rehearsal room overlooking a school’s playground. And indeed, glitter.
by Laura Kressly
Since 2003, there has been a summer of free, open-air theatre at The Scoop, a sweeping, granite amphitheatre on the Thames next to City Hall. This year’s double-bill is a 90-minute version of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and a new children’s musical, The Sea Queen. Performed by one cast doing double-duty, Twelfth Night is the far superior show though there is plenty to appeal to young children in The Sea Queen.
by Meredith Jones Russell
Does the world need a musical version of 1999 American teen flick Cruel Intentions? Probably not, but by God it’s entertaining.
Packing out the Underbelly’s Palais du Variete, this is closer to rock concert than musical. The mainly millennial audience is practically word perfect on both the script, which has been cut for length but otherwise largely unaltered from the screenplay, and the ‘00s hits that are peppered through the plot, often with the flimsiest justification.
The Play's The Thing UK 