Interval Productions to Premiere Vulnerable One-Act WRETCH at the Vault Festival

Multi-award nominated Interval Productions have teamed exciting up and coming writer Rebecca Walker together with indie-pop act Eliza and the Bear to bring Wretch to the Vault Festival this February.

A one-act play about life after homelessness, Wretch was inspired by three months of interviews that writer Rebecca Walker conducted with vulnerably housed women at a day centre in Whitechapel. Originally commissioned by Into the Wolf Productions, Wretch completed an Arts-Council-funded tour of drop-in centres, night shelters and drug rehabilitation units in 2015, to overwhelmingly positive reviews from its audiences who shared lived experience with the play's characters.

In an exciting new collaboration with Tori Allen Martin, creative director of Interval Productions, Wretch has been reworked into a play with songs by London-based band Eliza and the Bear.

Wretch is set in a women's hostel on the North Circular, where the noise never stops but you're always alone. An ex-teacher and an ex-junkie, who met on a night bus during long, dark nights of homelessness are reunited. A year on, Irena has rebuilt her life. But just as she thinks she is safe, Amy crashes head-first back into it with bigger dreams for life's second chances. In a taut hour long show, three actors and a sea of voices bring the too-keenly-felt world of Amy and Irena's hopes and delusions into brilliant, disconcerting life.

Tori says, "I met Rebecca on Greg Mosse's new writing programme at The Criterion. I was already a big fan of her work and commissioned her to write a piece for my Arts Council funded Made in LDN season. When she approached me about helping her to add a musical element to Wretch and also playing Amy, I leapt at it. It's such a wonderful piece; the play in its own right is so powerful, and we're now using music to further explore Amy's dreamworld- her fantasy like approach to life, a bubble I guess to protect her from her pretty bleak reality. I'd been doing backing vocals for Eliza and the Bear and I felt their music would be the perfect fit. I was so excited when they said yes. Team that with an amazing cast and creative team and a raw space as raw and vibrant as The Vaults, and it's set to be something really special I think. We're so excited to be a part of the Vault Festival. We rehearsed there last week just before the official opening and the buzz around the building is electric'.

Joining Tori (whose credits include Lauren in Muted at The Bunker Theatre, the European tour of Hair for Gary Lloyd, and vocalist on Idris Elba's mi Mandela album) are Debra Baker and Timothy O'Hara. Debra has worked for 10 years in every area of the industry. In 2015 she joined the BBC Radio Drama Company for 6 months working on Radio 4 plays, and 2016 saw her working in New York in the transfer of Philip Ridley's Radiant Vermin. Timothy O'Hara's credits include The Mousetrap (St Martin's Theatre), Shakespeare in Love (Noel Coward), London Wall (St. James).

Wretch will be directed by Jamie Harper.

Wretch will be one of five plays published by Nick Hern books as part of this year's vault anthology.

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