Cindy Marcolina - Page 27

This year, Network Theatre Company take their audience to an unspecified futuristic time with The Future is Mental, an anthology of six short plays that are heavily recalling of Black Mirror. Written and directed by Rosie de Vekey, the pieces are smart and precise, and don't conceal their external inspiration.

Three strippers are working in a decadent venue in London. Among sleazy men, weirdos, and abuse, they're all trying to survive in a changing business. The theme and core idea have potential, but the execution is, unfortunately, a trainwreck.

Same-sexual relationships of any kind are illegal in Nigeria. Legal and social action is taken to any member of the LGBTQ community, with death by stoning as maximum punishment. As the political climate heats up and the country becomes more and more dangerous, Babatunde is visiting his best friend Regina in South London.

Croatian writer and performer Danaja Wass brings her latest project Notch to VAULT Festival directed by Madelaine Moore. While the piece still needs to smooth out some of its crinkles, it's a precise exploration of emigration, homelessness, and people's hypocrisy.

After a triumphant presence at Edinburgh Festival Fringe last year, Rosa Hesmondhalgh has taken Madame Ovary back to London for what's looking like another bewilderingly successful run.

It's safe to say that Be More Chill's journey to the major stages has been decidedly unconventional. After its New Jersey commission in 2015 and the subsequent limited run and cast recording release, fans started to spread the word thanks to the power of the internet.

Born out of the celebrations for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death in 2016, Ben Elton's sit-com Upstart Crow went on to have three series and multiple Christmas specials. It follows William Shakespeare, who's by now rather well-known in London, as he attempts to write his notorious body of work pinching ideas here and there and taking credit for quotes that aren't his, scribbling away whenever his nearest and dearest say something clever for future use.

COLAB Theatre have woven another thrilling adventure: the company strikes gold with the Peaky Blinder infused Crooks 1926. London is held in the grip of the Sabini family, but the McDonalds are plotting to take over. After their patriarch's death, brothers Charles a?oeWaga?? (Angus Woodward) and William a?oeWala?? (Simon Pothecary) have gathered their clan to mourn the former leader and plan the road to supremacy.

Mixing theatre and food has become a bit of a craze in the past couple of years, so it was only a matter of time before shows involving food were introduced in festivals. Paul Flannery - who's spent ten years going in and out of the profession - and his assistant serve a delectable evening whether you enjoy spending time in the kitchen or not.

Katie Arnstein returns to VAULT Festival after Bicycles and Fish and Sexy Lamp to complete her It's a Girl! trilogy presenting Sticky Door directed by Ellen Howard. The show details a year in her life, examining how in 2014 she started the journey to reclaim her body and mind while being severely depressed.

In 1969, a serial killer brutally murdered three women in Scotland. Nicknamed Bible John by the police and the press, his identity is still a mystery. In the present day, four young women who are bored out of their mind while temping in an office find out that they share a mild obsession with true crime podcasts. As they start bonding on Carrie LaRue's investigation on the Glaswegian case, they try their own hand at giving justice to the victims.

The Paper Birds tackle all the important stuff and then some in their groundbreaking and format defying Ask Me Anything. After asking teenagers all around the countries to send them their problems and questions as if they were agony aunts, they noticed that, generally, their letters were falling into broader categories with some other thorny topics in the mix. The result is a moving, open, and honest project about the legitimate issues of today's youth.

After the press murders their Richard III and everything seems lost, Stu McLoughlin notices that Howard Coggins looks like Henry VIII. What ensues is a hilariously impertinent, rude, crass, and occasionally blasphemous revision of history. Think of Six, turn it upside down, add a couple of hysterical jokes, and you'll have The Six Wives of Henry VIII. The result is glorious.

Billy (Damian Lynch) and Scarlet (Izabella Urbanowicz) meet in a damp underpass covered in graffiti. He is involved in gang crime; she is the mother of their 15-year-old son Alfie. In a London where the tunnel acts as a partition between luxury living and council estates, the characters come to terms with how their relationship has changed through the years, gentrification, and the innate violence of Billy's lifestyle.

Electrick Village brings technology to VAULT Festival, creating an all-encompassing 360 adventure that - quite literally - transports the audience to another dimension. Met by a chirpy staff member and the creator of RawTransport - a a?oetop of the line travel companya?? - they explore the trappings of escapism and the dangers of Virtual Reality.

Rose and Simeon are approaching Mars while, back on Earth, Alisha and Marcus are hired as speech writers. While the latter two bicker about ethics and potential tragedy, the astronauts are coming to terms with success and mortality. Barry McStay's play The First packs a load of great ideas that, at this stage, don't hit as well as they could.

In a small village, a girl is on her last police warning. One more offence and she's going to be locked up. Her life is spent between school and a job in a shop while she takes care about her ailing mum and 6-year-old sister. Her future is a hazy dream she's afraid to consider and her house is scattered with guns.

With a loop pedal and tonnes of personality, Jack AG Britton addresses a strikingly under-explored subject: heightism. From Tinder profiles deliberately demanding men only above a certain height to swipe right to blatant online hatred directed towards short guys, Mighty brings light and humour to an issue that severely impacts lots of men's mental health.

As Joe is asked to prepare for a play about domestic assault based on Shakespeare's toxic males, his own relationships start to change. The second offering by Joe Sellman-Leava and Worklight Theatre for VAULT Festival is a defining and masterful performance. Monster is a journey through noxious masculinity, the performative aspect of it, and the glorification of violence.

We all attach labels to people. Some - like friend, father, brother - are kinder than others. Joe Spellman-Leava explores the magnitude of sticking attributes to individuals in his extraordinarily intelligent solo show Labels. With Katharina Reinthaller's stunning direction, he analyses the breadth of racist abuse his family and then he experienced.