VAULT Festival – one of the UK’s leading festivals of live performance – has completed its 2023 season and brought to an end its decade-long run at the cavernous labriynth beneath London’s Waterloo station.

While the future of the festival remains uncertain, the 2023 season has delivered some big numbers. Across its 8-week run, more than 81,000 audience members have been entertained by 553 shows presented by 4,000 artists appearing in 1,860 performances. The average ticket price was £12.40.

One of the driving forces of VAULT Festival has been to platform work from underrepresented artists who otherwise may not have access to opportunities elsewhere. The 2023 programme comprised work that was 33% Black or African Diaspora-led, 34% Asian Diaspora-led and 34% Migrant or Refugee-led with 55% LGBTQIA+ led, 32% Disabled-led and 51% Working Class-led.

“We will always fight for the voices of underrepresented artists who otherwise may not have had access to these opportunities to be heard loud and proud…” said Andy George – director and co-founder of VAULT Festival. “We are fiercely passionate about the work that our artists create, about them as unique and wonderful individuals, and about promoting a world and industry that is more inclusive, more accessible, more sustainable, and more creative. Whilst our journey at our original home is coming to an end, we are determined for this to be the end of the chapter, not the end of the book.”

A campaign has been launched to help raise funds to find a new venue for VAULT Festival.

Donations can be contributed via vaultfestival.com/save-vault.

UK Theatre Round-up – which queer performances should be on your radar?

Which queer theatre shows should be on your radar in the months ahead? Here’s a quick round-up showcasing some of the best LGBTQ talent in the UK.

Sight Unseen, The King’s Head Theatre, 27 March – 16 April

Sight Unseen is a season of work unpacking diversity and unheard voices, curated by Guest Artistic Director Isabel Adomakoh Young.

Starting off the season Unleash the Llama will return to King’s Head Theatre with Five Years with The White Man after their hit shows JEW…ish and Man of 100 Faces. A true story about Black Briton ABC Merriman-Labour, an African satirist and writer who wrote the first ethnographic account of the White Man. Playing alongside this, Mary Lacy Woz Queer explores another queer historical figure, 18th Century shipwright Mary Lacy who defied gender norms to have a career in 1759 Deptford.

In the second week audiences can look forward to Auntie’s House, telling the extraordinary story of a middle-aged Muslim woman from 1950s Notting Hill who opens up her front room as a pop-up gay bar, and Perverts, Alice McKee’s witty one-woman show whose protagonist faces her own internalised lesbophobia, queer shame, exes and almost-threesomes in a sex club.

In the final week Offie-Award nominated Frangipane Productions (The Party, Camden Fringe) brings The Q, a rapid-fire, state-of-the-nation satire set in none other than The Queue (for the lying in state of Queen Elizabeth II) and May Day, a story of friendship, abortion rights and Conor McGregor as Ireland enters its referendum on abortion rights.

Also featured in the season will be the iconic queer Pan-Asian company Bitten Peach with their drag king show, The Last Show Before we Die from the creators of FITTER and HOTTER, Cow, a one-woman show about fatness, transness, hating your body and needing sex, Trash Salad a gender-bending, strip teasing, clowning operatic adventure, Don’t Stand So Close To Me, a two woman show e-erotica, Lolita and facing our fantasies. And 4 duologues from new writing company Any Second Now, It Takes Two.

ANIMAL, UK tour, until 20 May

Written by Jon Bradfield and developed by Josh Hepple, ANIMAL, explores how disability, sexuality and lust co-exist for people who require round-the-clock assistance. ANIMAL is an authentic, hilarious, and heart-breaking look at hook-up culture, navigating relationships and how they intersect with practical needs and social barriers for disabled people.

Starring Christopher John-Slater, the play tours to Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester, the Tobacco Factory in Bristol and Park Theatre in London.

Galatea, Brighton Festival, 5-21 May

Galatea was written by Shakespeare’s contemporary John Lyly in the 1580s and will now be brought vividly to life in a field on the South Coast in an ambitious collaboration between Emma Frankland, Marlborough Productions, Wildworks, and Diverse Alarums.

This new version of Galatea has been commissioned by Brighton Festival and will be presented outdoors at a large scale, with a vibrant, large cast of LGBTQIA+ and Deaf performers,

Rose, Ambassadors Theatre, London, 23 May – 18 June

Written by Martin Sherman and starring Maureen Lipman, Rose tells the story of a woman whose tumultuous journey through anarchic times takes her from the devastation of Nazi- occupied Europe to the allure of the American dream. Through the life of one woman, Rose tells the story of a century where everything changed except the violence of the strong against the weak.

Comments