Lyn Gardner's VAULT Festival 2023 Picks: Week 7

There are some potential goodies in week seven of this year’s VAULT Festival, the penultimate week, which spans Tuesday 7th through Sunday 12th of March. Lots of companies and shows come to the festival with little or no track record, but I saw plenty of promise in Quietly Fighting’s The Grim in 2020. They are back this year with Clusterfluff, billed as an immersive queer circus.

Joe Sellman-Leava of Worklight Theatre is also somebody with a track record, and his Edinburgh show, Fanboy, a thoughtful piece about fandom and masculinity, arrives in London. It is unlikely to disappoint and sure to entertain.

Press image from Kites.

Daniel Bainbridge and Cam Scriven’s Good Day sounds very topical. It’s a darkly comic exploration of what it means to be human when mortality is removed and AI can mimic thoughts and emotions. Going back in time is Irish writer Tzarini Meyler, who draws on her grandmother’s upbringing in Kites, a coming-of-age story set in a post-war Ireland where austerity rules.

I hadn’t heard of The Freshwater Five, a quintet of Isle of Wight fishermen who, in 2011, were convicted of trying to import £53 million worth of cocaine. They have always protested their innocence. Deadman’s show uses verbatim transcript, poetry, and folklore to consider their story.

In Zahra Jassi’s Honour-Bound, Simran, a young Indian woman, has a black boyfriend. She hopes they can live happily ever after. But is that possible when her family disapproves? Marriage is also the subject of Tina Tieno’s storytelling show, Sacrifice. But in this case, it is child marriage. Inspired by a true story, the piece shows one mother battling to do what’s right and best for her disabled daughter.

Cover image from Deadman's The Freshwater Five.