Theatre Preview: Vault Festival
Emerging and established performance artists and companies are coming together under London at the end of this month, to ensure 2014’s creative calendar starts good form and sees that we’re culturally occupied well into the spring.
Vault Festival, a six-week celebration of all forms of creative performance, will kick off at Waterloo’s Leake Street Tunnels on 28 thJanuary and will include everything from a reimagining of Hunter S. Thomson’s seminal gonzo journalism masterpiece Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas to free live music from The Kansas Smitty’s (pictured), described as “swing music meets New Orleans jazz.”
The Opening Hullaballoo, on Thursday 30 thJanuary, will sample all genres that can be expected throughout the festival and will also see Time Out All Star DJs hitting the decks.
Vault Lates, on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, will see the venue’s atmospheric caverns morph into an “underground nightclub, featuring one-off parties and extravaganzas” from 10.30pm.
There will also be free live music and comedy every Tuesday and Wednesday between 9pm and 11pm, from the aforementioned Kansas Smitty’s.
The headline stage productions are that of Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which has been reimagined by Thompson’s friend, Director Lou Stein, and Ian McEwan’s The Cement Garden, which is having its world premiere and tells the story of four orphaned children.
Both productions will run for the entirety of the festival, Fear and Loathing from Tuesday to Friday at 7.30pm and Saturdays at 6.45pm and 9.15pm (tickets £25) and The Cement Garden also from Tuesday to Saturday, times tbc (tickets £20.)
Other highlights from the Vault Festival programme include:
Friday 7th/Saturday 8thFebruary: Two Fear and Loathing parties “from Glastonbury’s Shangri-La team, which extend the mad nightmare of Hunter S. Thompson’s world into the early hours.”
Friday 14thFebruary: The Art of Hearts, “a Valentine’s Evening ball from collective the Artful Badger, where secret performances, two rooms of music, stalls, games and dancers will provide amorous arts for the romantically rampant.”
Friday 21stFebruary: The House of Burlesque — bringing “glamour to the tunnels with performances by burlesque artistes from around the globe.”
Friday 28thFebruary/Saturday 1stMarch: Nabakov Arts Club “brings the best in alternative arts culture to VAULT spanning theatre, spoken word and music — all in the guise of a double birthday knees up.”
Also confirmed are a wide variety of physical theatre performances, one man shows, ensemble theatre, and music/performance combos — promising that no two nights at Vault will be the same.
Snacks and food will be available every night courtesy of adventurer/chef Coyote Moon, and a bar will be open throughout.
10% off for the performances of
Students can take full advantage of the programme by showing their ID and getting Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and The Cement Garden during the first three weeks on the Festival (maximum of 20 tickets per night.)
There are also a few more student offers for various performances and Lates throughout the festival:
Thursday 30th Jan: Time Out Introducing VAULT. 100 tickets @ £5
Friday 31st Jan: Kansas Smitty’s 100 tickets @ £11.50 100 tickets @ £9
Saturday 1st Feb: Silent Night in the Vaults 100 tickets @ £10
Friday 7th Feb: Late at Las Vegas 150 tickets @ £10 150 tickets @ £6
Friday 21st Feb: Time Out House of Burlesque 100 tickets @ £10 Students can book their tickets via the Vault website (below) using the code MRWHITE.
Saturday 22nd Feb: Electronic Lockdown
Friday 7th March: Fat Tuesday
Only the second year that Vault has taken place, after huge success in 2012. Could it become as internationally renouned as Edinburgh Fringe? It’s currently the only festival of this scale in London that takes in all aspects of the arts, so we’ll have to wait and see…
Vault Festival takes place at The Vaults, Waterloo, from 28th January to 8th March. To see the full programme listing and buy tickets visit www.thevaultfestival.com.
@vaultfestival
Originally published at https://www.thenationalstudent.com.
