Kat Mokrynski - Page 22

Gone to the Dogs is an interesting show, but difficult to understand at times, making it a struggle for me to fully enjoy what was going on on stage. It was tough to tell whether the performance was satire, poking fun at those who miss the “good old days” of England, or a genuine performance mourning the loss of what can only be remembered now.

Even with my desire to learn and my love for immersive theatre, the show was confusing and left me frustrated. It is one thing to have purposeful confusion, in which the audience is meant to question what they are seeing - It is another thing entirely when your audience has no idea what to do or how to even move on to the next scene.

Ultimately, The Buzztones Present “Now That’s What Someone Might Call Music!” is an absolutely delightful presentation of acapella from a group that is clearly passionate (while also being immensely talented)! You can bet that I’ll be humming their songs for the next few weeks.

Ultimately, Rendez-Vous Revue is a fun show with some great performances that could be a little more cohesive. Sometimes the performances felt a bit low-energy, but that may have been solo performers being on such a large stage, only accompanied by loud music and the cheering audience.

Katie Pritchard: Disco Ball is an absolute delight that will have you shaking from laughter, but it is also a powerful anthem to being yourself and not letting others tell you what to do. To quote Pritchard, “You’re a disco ball”!

Ultimately, Hildegard von Bingen is incredibly confusing and very unsatisfying for those hoping to learn more about the brilliant woman that Hildegard was. As someone who studied her music and her life, I was hoping to see a more psychological look at the woman, not images of Hildegard curled up in a ball muttering to herself.

When taking moments to pause from laughing at the quick and witty jokes, I found myself in awe of how easily Van der Velde was able to take what appeared to be random characters and put them together, creating a story about an underground fight ring that was being run by “The Last Remaining Briton,” Richard.

House of Burlesque: PoliTITS is, to quote the host, Lolo Brow ('Better than Lolo Self-Esteem') about 'Our two favourite things - Tits and the end of the world.' The goal of the show is to celebrate the history of burlesque through the lens of news, but not all the news as, 'We have an hour. We cannot cover everything.'

Boorish Trumpson is fun for the clowning aspects but fails to deliver on the political side. If this show was meant to give me the sense of frustration and confusion of the Boris and Trump era, it met its goal. I left Boorish Trumpson just as confused as I was by the time Trump and Boris themselves left office.

Tommy Dixon is an ordinary man who wants to live an extraordinary life. He’s a telemarketer for a magazine company about tall things, his dad left him and his mother alone, and his stepfather talks to him with his butt. But Tommy’s life changes when he meets Father Badass, a priest at St. Bartholomew with a big secret - He’s a vampire hunter.

On Friday, January 27th, the VAULT Festival hosted its own VAULT Festival Birthday Bash, a 4 ½-hour party in The Flair Ground at The Vaults to celebrate the festival’s “decade of bold and original live performance.” The show’s description promised “breathtaking burlesque” and “outstanding circus” as well as a “Drag sensation” host, Rhyss Pieces.

On the VAULT Festival’s website, All Falls Down is described with the keywords “horror,” “improv,” and “interactive.” Unfortunately, while the show was certainly improvised by the sole performer and interactive as it depended on its audience, it failed to bring horror to the VOID.

As someone who loves comedy and went to a Catholic school named after Saint Joseph, I immediately felt drawn to Adam Willis: Joseph. The VAULT Festival’s website stated that “Adam’s hilarious retelling of the Nativity story puts a dimly-lit spotlight on the Bible’s third-best carpenter; Joseph of Nazareth.”

You enter the Cavern's space underneath an inflatable rainbow, with the performers greeting you with smiles and asking how you are. Some performers are hitting large balloons to each other across the space while others hand audience members pieces of paper, asking them to write down an embarrassing story to be put in a box.

I have a confession to make - I have never been to a drag show. But, being quite a nerdy person, it was incredibly on brand that my first drag show would be You Shall Not Yass, a queer take on the Lord of the Rings franchise.

Daniel Sloss’s Can’t is a brilliant show that will have you crying tears of laughter while also making you think about the different controversies that divide our world.

All In Good Time is, to quote the show’s site, “a show about ADHD and time travel, complete with dodos, disco balls and ducks and whatever else we have time for” created by the Not-God Complex. The show itself aims to tell a story of time from a neurodivergent perspective, particularly focusing on ADHD through the trope of time travel.

BroadwayWorld UK had the chance to interview David Thaxton and Jon Robyns, who currently play Javert and Jean Valjean respectively, in the iconic show Les Misérables. On a Zoom meeting from their dressing room, the two actors talked about their years of playing a variety of roles, their struggles with muscle memory, and what Les Mis means to them. 

A sign-language-speaking gorilla, white nationalists, and Robin Williams. What do they have in common? According to Alex Edelman's Just For Us, they're a lot more similar than one might think.

Recently, BroadwayWorld UK had the chance to speak with Anna Clover about her first solo show, Going Deutsch, which will be performed at the VAULT Festival in February.