by Joanna Trainor
Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.
Jessica Siân opens Work Bitch with an utterly manic laugh. The awful kind of laugh you develop when you have to laugh or you’ll cry. This is a proper tragicomedy at its core. The intelligent writing makes you laugh at these larger than life characters, all played by Siân, and then hits you with the added details – like the expression of the cook, who works every shift he can, when he thinks no one’s watching.
by Laura Kressly
Roger’s an average guy down on his luck, living with his girlfriend after being made redundant and wishing he could see his son more. Still bitter about his divorce and losing his job, he passes time wondering aimlessly around the internet. When he emerges from a youtube rabbit hole that led him to the user Angry Alan, Roger feels like he’s woken from a long sleep. The Men’s Rights Movement has gained another disciple.
by Romy Foster
Making my way into the theatre, I am so excited to see this show. The speakers on the incoming are blaring superwoman smash hits like Destiny’s Child’s ‘Say My Name’ and Jamelia’s ‘Superstar’ and I am pumped to see a full hour of female empowering, bossy woman, hell-raising quality content. Being International Women’s Day, I feel like this is the perfect show to see.
by Christina Bulford
Ever felt like you were stumbling through life rather than running it? Living in London can feel like a sprint sometimes, barging up and down escalators and chasing pay cheques whilst trying to hold family and friends, a career and a love life together in your sweaty palms. As if that wasn’t enough, you meet stumbling blocks along the way, like: what day do I need to put the bins out? How many weeks is it acceptable not to wash my sheets? Will I ever be grown-up enough to be in bed by ten, or to do a weekly shop?
by Lawrence Osborne and Laura Kressly
Have you ever heard of Gideon Mantell? We hadn’t. But this multi-role telling of the life of the Sussex-based Victorian doctor and amateur geologist, whose discovery of the Iguanodon instigated relentless conflicts with the Church of England, is a compelling, musical story of a man willing to lose everything in the fight for scientific progress.
by Meredith Jones Russell
Billed as part theatre, part game, part improv comedy, Lamplighters is certainly attempting to cast its net as wide as possible when it comes to appeal. Based on host and star Neil Connolly’s attempt to relive his favourite childhood game, it asks willing audience members to join in a madcap game of John le Carré-style spies.
by Meredith Jones Russell
In a galaxy far, far away, a short walk from the main Vaults site, the USA, USSR and European Union have assembled their finest scientists to bring an international space expedition safely back to earth.
by Christina Bulford
‘Tacenda’ is an archaic term meaning ‘the opposite of agenda’. Red Belly Black return to the Vaults with their third production, but a less clear idea of where they are going.
by Laura Kressly
CW: suicide and self-harm
Mossy is only 22 but he’s tired of life. He can’t shake the feeling that there’s nothing more than this, so the best option is to call it a day and kill himself. His only concern is that his mum won’t be able to afford his funeral, so he convinces his reluctant mates to launch a fundraising campaign before he goes. Touching on toxic masculinity, male friendship, euthanasia and voyeuristic media consumption, this new script has some clumsy writing but the themes that propel the action forward to a surprising end smartly support the story of friendship.
by Louis Train
Birthright comes out the gate distracted: a sex joke, some meta humour, accents. It stays distracted, too, so at least it’s consistent. By the end of the play, one gets the sense of half a dozen stories and motifs started and abondaned; it interrupts itself.
The Play's The Thing UK 