comedy

Hølìdåÿ, VAULT Festival

by Laura Kressly

Many of us crave the escape from mundane routine that a holiday abroad gives us. Sun, sand, great food and immersion in different cultures are all wonderful experiences – usually. There absolutely can be downsides. Using clowning and mime, David Hoskin presents the annoying (sunburn and fellow travellers), the uncertain (whether or not a dubious-looking meal will hurt you), and the down-right strange and terrible (getting stranded in the woods and threatened by wild animals). Hoskin’s physical performance is exceptional, though the narrative’s shift into the surreal is less effectively conveyed than other parts of the story.

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Emily Wilson: Fixed, Soho Theatre

by Zahid Fayyaz

After previous runs at the Soho Theatre in the upstairs space and at Edinburgh Fringe, this American comedian returns to the to the bigger cabaret space for her most recent, hour-long set. This is the story of Emily Wilson’s starring role in the first X-Factor USA, first as part of a duo and then later in an ill-advised, 10 kid group.

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Belinda, VAULT Festival

by Laura Kressly

Rose and Ruby are best friends and flatmates who met at Piper’s, one of the few spaces for queer women and femmes left in the city. Piper’s has announced they have to close so the pair are scheming about how to raise money for the venue. Turning to tarot and astrology as well as their own lives, queer joy ultimately emerges from the characters’ struggles as well as from the actors who play them.

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Fanboy, VAULT Festival

by Zahid Fayyaz

Fresh from a month’s run at the Edinburgh Fringe and then Soho Theatre, Fanboy is a one-man show written and acted by Joe Sellman-Leava. It is seemingly autobiographical, looking at changes in society through the lens of the Star Wars fandom. Using videos and props to develop the story of the piece, it’s certainly not static, which can often be an issue with one-person shows.

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Honour-Bound, VAULT Festival

by Zahid Fayyaz

This is a one-woman show with an accompanying musician, three chairs and a suitcase that tells the story of a British South Asian student, focusing on the beginning of her relationship with Jay at university. However, in between the descriptions of university life, there is a looming sense of dread and violence due to her family not approving of her match and what happened to her friend who went against her family’s wishes.

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Snail, VAULT Festival

by Diana Miranda

Written and performed by Bebe Sanders, Snail is a comic exploration of an overachiever’s mental health, unravelled with a surrealist touch. Through the eyes of Sylvie, a young teacher striving for a promotion, the story lays out the impact of intense work ethics and a tendency towards toxic positivity.

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Clementine, VAULT Festival

by Laura Kressly

As elder Gen Zs approach their mid-20s, it makes sense that they turn to comedy to cope with what seems like the never-ending apocalyptic disasters plaguing their brief adulthood. Writer/comedian Rosalie Minnitt has tapped into her generation’s resulting anxiety by condensing what seems like all early-20-somethings’ tropes into an unhinged character piece set “sometime in the past”. Utterly bizarre and nonsensical, the title character is on an absurd quest to marry as soon as possible so that she avoids her parents disappearing her, but this is a thin narrative that’s really just a vehicle for Minnitt’s jokes.

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Hummingbird, VAULT Festival

by Zahid Fayyaz

This three-character play deals with the aftermath and grief following the disappearance of Gavin, Phoeb’s husband. She returns to the farm she grew up on, where her half-sister Jude and Jude’s husband Brian are trying to eek out a living, despite not being suited to being farmers. To cope with her grief, Phoeb believes Gavin has returned as a hummingbird, and starts building wings to join him in flight. However, the tensions between the trio soon begin to bubble to the surface.

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Emile and Emily, VAULT Festival

by Laura Kressly

In each of the three unrelated scenes that make up this triptych, a different Emily and an Emile tackle big ideas. Two flatmates argue about class privilege, a pair of flight attendants mull over love and confronting fears, and grief dominates the conversation between a man and his dead boyfriend’s sister. Each scene has some strong moments and the issues are prescient, but the writing quality varies and it’s unclear why these particular stories are produced together.

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Hexenhammer, VAULT Festival

by Luisa De la Concha Montes

Die Hexenhammer is a treatise on witchcraft written and published in 1486 by Catholic clergymen Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger. The key argument of the book is the following: Chaos is female and women corrupt men, therefore women must be destroyed. Using this historical event as the backbone of the play, Suzy Kohane (as Heinrich) and Sidsel Rostrup (as Jacob, Heinrich’s faithful companion) mix comedy and verbatim theatre (taken from incel forums) to create a hilarious, yet extremely poignant play that explores the roots of misogyny.

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