VAULT Festival 2019
One of the coolest venues in London is again host to one of the most eclectic festivals. VAULT Festival is back for its seventh year with over 400 shows for your amusement, amazement, gratification and occasional puzzlement. Running through March 17th, you’ll find something for everyone – improv comedy, immersive theatre, cabaret, burlesque, one-person shows and the occasional party – all 
tucked under Waterloo Station. Pop Culture Beast is especially looking forward to the following:
Fight Night from EXIT PRODUCTIONS 30th Jan – 17th Feb
Award-winning Exit Productions return to VAULT 2019 with the world premiere of Fight Night – their most ambitious immersive project to date. Fury, excitement and tension build as two boxers enter the ring and it is up to the audience who is crowned the champion. We assume you won’t get dragged into the fight.
Counting Sheep and Balaklava Blues from SELFCONSCIOUS PRODUCTIONS & WILD YAK, in association with HOT FEAT through 17th March
The headliners of this year’s VAULT are Mark and Marichka Marczyk and company, who smashed it at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2016 and are back with two shows.
The immersive folk opera Counting Sheep is a personal retelling of the revolution in Ukraine, but one in which you are invited to take part. How often do you get a chance to explore the politics of revolution, set to the music of guerilla-folk party-punk band, The Lemon Bucket Orkestra? Also running for a full eight weeks is the London premiere of Balaklava Blues – an ethno-bass live set, coupled with archive footage, iconic Soviet cartoons, and the polyphonic blues of the Ukrainian plains.
VAULT Festival Comedy Showcase! every Thursday through 14th March
Catch some of the finest comedians performing across VAULT Festival each week for under a tenner, all hosted by Edinburgh Comedy Award Nominee Jordan Brookes. heck the link for which up and comer is performing, and in five years you’ll have a great story about how you caught so-and-so superstar for pocket change, deep under Waterloo.
Séance from DARKFIELD through 17th March
…be very very quiet
Oh this sounds wonderful and terrifying. Séance explores the psychology of a group of people when they are bombarded with suggestible material. Lasting only twenty minutes, it is an intense sonic performance. Limited to twenty people at a time.
Cabaret Sauvignon and a Single VAULT Whiskey from STIFF AND KITSCH through 8th March
Grab a drink and join hosts Stiff and Kitsch for a mixed bill of London’s top musical comedy acts, discussing embarrassing drinking events, life as we now it and more. Check here for the line-up. Laughter guaranteed, hangover optional.
Greyscale from ANONYMOUS IS A WOMAN Feb 2 – March 17
We’ve all had bad dates, but how would you like to be outside of the couple, full of opinions and ready to judge? Part site specific theatre,
part ‘choose your own adventure’, part #metoo, this comes from the folks that brought you the fantastic Think of England last year.
One party believes it’s sexual misconduct, and the other, simply a bad date – what do you believe? Only 10 tickets per show, and dress warmly.
How to Date a Magical Creature from HOW TO DATE A MAGICAL CREATURE 23rd -24th Feb
Only go to this one if you like being part of the show. In this interactive improv comedy, hosted by the witless ‘Toby Vanilla’ and set in a chaotic TV studio, the audience get to choose which magical creatures – Santa? The Lucky Charms leprechaun?- go under the journalistic microscope. Featuring a bunch of UK comedy veterans and paying homage to telly interview shows, you get to format the nonsense as Toby tries to hold the show together.
Feed – from THEATRE TEMOIN – 6th-10th March
Click-bait culture, fake news and cyber gluttony are processed through a black mirror in Feed. Theatre Témoin gained attention at the Edinburgh Festival for a show that proves the algorithms know what you want, and the price of fulfillment is only your emotional happiness.
And a special mention to a series of thoughtprovoking and hopefully comforting pieces.
VAULT Festival has teamed up with Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust to open up conversations around death, dying and grief by curating a programme of shows “Let’s Talk @ VAULT Festival“. Whether you laugh, or cry, the idea is to get you talking.
Two productions that PCB is looking forward to:
A Wake in Progress – from FINE MESS THEATRE and Leila Sykes 6th -10th Feb
come as you are, it’s just a wake
A Wake in Progress will give audiences the chance to attend their own funeral (It promises to be more fun than it sounds). Every performance will be unique, as the characters on stage are reinvented each night according to the personal stories and relationships of those watching the show. A Wake in Progress offers a humorous and moving tale of love, death and funerals which encourages a reassessment the morbid approach to death that we have come to expect.
Leave A Message from LIBBY DANIEL/JAMES MITCHELL PRODUCTIONS 20th-24th Feb
A death. A flat. A blinking answerphone. A godawful mess. Two friends are about to have a difficult Thursday… A brand new comedy, based on an actual afternoon that you’d hope to never have to go through.
VAULT Festival runs through 17th March – take buses and trains to Waterloo and exit near Platform 1. All the info you’ll need is here.
