By Joanna Trainor
My money is on the squid in a squid versus whale fight.
off-West End
Ride, VAULT Festival
By Dora Bodrogi
Hop on the saddle for this ride around the world with Annie Londonderry, a trailblazer on two wheels. Bottle Cap Theatre give us an hour of superb musical theatre detailing the journey of this overlooked pioneer.
The Spirit part 2: The Lion, Battersea Arts Centre
By Euan Vincent
Director Jack McNamara promised very different performances for each part of Thibault Delferiere’s Spirit trilogy. Attending Lion, we begin to see what he means. Audience filter in to find a desolate Delferiere sitting in a cage. Food is once again dangling from the ceiling, but whereas in the first it was an innocent apple, here a large chunk of meat, tantalises Delferiere from above.
All Quiet On The Western Front, VAULT Festival
By Zahid Fayyaz
First put on in 2015, this is a welcome return for Incognito Theatre’s adaptation of the novel and film of the life and trials of five German friends on the front during World War One. Fitting it all into an hour-long show is a tough task, but the five talented actors do extremely well to succeed in doing so. With minimal props and using the power of dialogue, they move from initial recruitment to punishing an overly arrogant corporal, to fighting on the front and being forced to reside in a military hospital.
She Is a Place Called Home, VAULT Festival
By Bryony Rae Taylor
She Is A Place Called Home explores how two sisters simultaneously support and frustrate each other as they prepare for their Dad’s controversial second marriage, which is not good news for his current wife, their mother.
The Last 5 Years, Southwark Playhouse
By Joanna Trainor
Jamie Wellerstein is the ultimate fuckboi.
You know it’s true, but you always forget it until you’re watching the show. You’re all happy to be his Shiksa Goddess, and swooning over his proposal and then – BAM! “I’m sorry I slept with someone else, you should have paid more attention.” Well no Jamie, that’s not acceptable behaviour, is it?
Our Man in Havana, VAULT Festival
By Zahid Fayyaz
Spies Like Us Theatre have returned for one week with their award-winning show from 2017’s Edinburgh Fringe. A five-person adaptation of the Graham Greene satirical novel, this one-hour show follows the story of a local vacuum cleaner salesman pushed into working as a spy for MI6 in Cuba, Havana.
Visit Bethlehem, VAULT Festival
By Bryony Rae Taylor
Expert storyteller Osama Al Azza conducts a tour of his home, Palestine’s smallest refugee camp Al Azza, within the city of Bethlehem. A short, sharp, site-specific show which imaginatively blends fun into a personal tale about the brutal reality of living under military occupation.
A review in five vignettes.
V&V, Vault Festival
By Evangeline Cullingworth
Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West’s relationship is memorialized in their letters. Lifted from the heady Edwardian drawing rooms, phrases like, “throw over your man, I say, and come” or “I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia” are stretched out and poured over. We ache for their magnetic rapport and searing wit. We savour the sweetness of their intimacy, captured with their skill and made more beautiful as generations pass.
Lòng Mẹ, VAULT Festival
By Keagan Fransch
For many of us, the struggle to understand our mothers and the choices they’ve made is a lifelong adventure, often unearthing more questions than answers. Lòng Mẹ (a Vietnamese phrase meaning Mother’s soul/heart/love) interrogates this struggle through two very different, very personal stories told through the lens of the most questioning of all children – the child of immigrants.
The Play's The Thing UK 