YOUR GUIDE TO THIS WEEK IN CULTURE
This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Festivals Musicals Spoken Word Theatre ThisWeek In London
Three To See 14-20 Mar: Vault Festival, Sprint, Musicals, Theatre
By TW Editorial | Published on Friday 10 March 2023
VAULT FESTIVAL
You Are Going To Die | Vault Festival | 14-19 Mar (pictured)
It’s the last week of the Vault Festival, which is sad, but as ever, we have a clutch of recommendations for you. First recommendation, actually, is to help save the Vault Festival, take a look here and do what you can. But next, consider buying a ticket for ‘You Are Going To Die’ by Adam Scott-Rowley, who you’ll know from a previous and excellent piece of work ‘This Is Not Culturally Significant’. Expect something brilliant, dark and funny. Click here.
Burnout | Vault Festival | 18-19 Mar
“Amara meets Bridgette at a protest, one of those ‘hippy, green, save-the-planet’ things. Bridgette’s a committed activist. Amara’s about to finish her GCSEs. Their town’s been flooded. Again. But how’s getting arrested going to help anything? They can’t afford to do that”. A show about climate activist burnout, created with climate activists from across the UK. More information right about here.
Seeking Delphi | Vault Festival | 14-17 Mar
Another interesting one for you: ‘Seeking Delphi’ is inspired by Euripides’ Ancient Greek tragedy ‘The Women Of Troy’, and has been made in collaboration with homeless people from London and beyond. It’s about three homeless women – Cassie, Andi and Helen – who meet once a week at the Delphi Leisure Centre and are all seeking stability, security and a way to change their lives. More info here.
SPRINT FESTIVAL
Intruder/Intruz | Camden People’s Theatre | 15 Mar (pictured)
Yay, now more festival stuff from Camden People’s Theatre’s Sprint, which as you all surely know by now is full of new and exciting stuff. This one has a definite track record, though, as it’s a show that we heard great things about when it was on at edfringe last summer, and at other dates in London. “A moving portrayal of acceptance and the ultimate forgiveness”. See this page here for more.
Landfill Of Memories | Camden People’s Theatre | 15 Mar
“Hoarding usually begins at a young age. The act can be directly influenced by parental behaviour and tends to increase after trauma, so when a triple whammy of unexpected bereavements shatters Susanna’s life, her memories became a shrine to the past”. Very interested in this, not least because I really struggle to throw things away. Expect “shredding, storytelling, singing, comedy, dancing and jogging”. More here.
Experiments In Rest | Camden People’s Theatre | 18 Mar
I’m very fond of fibre arts and do a bit of embroidery from time to time myself, so this show – in which four women sit embroidering on an endless piece of fabric trying to to work out a way to rest – rather jumped out at me. It’s a study of friendship and anxiety that sees the performers slowly revealing their innermost thoughts, and asks the questions: “What does it mean to stop? To take time out? To sit still?” Details here.
MUSICALS
Eugenius | Turbine Theatre | 17 Mar-28 May
Yay, three whole musicals for all you musical lovers out there. Here’s a reworking of cult 2016 musical ‘Eugenius’, which will no doubt appeal if you are into your eighties shizzle, given it’s “a hilarious love letter to the iconic movies, comic books and nostalgia of the 80s” and a “show where geeks rule, dreams do come true, and everyone finds the superhero inside themselves”. Click here.
Cake | Turbine Theatre | 20 Mar-24 Apr
And we are staying at the Turbine Theatre for ‘Cake’, a new musical / gig / ballet combining rap and RnB and an interesting historical story. “When Marie Antoinette married King Louis, her reputation was already tarnished by gossip. But when she is implicated in a crime to defraud the crown jewellers of a diamond necklace, it is not just her reputation at stake, but the monarchy and France itself”. Info here.
Killing The Cat | Riverside Studios | 17 Mar-22 Apr (pictured)
“What happens when you’re falling for someone but don’t share their beliefs? What happens when you’re so sure you’re right you won’t move an inch? Does love stand a chance? In the heady world of the Romantic Poets, scientific theories and certainties, can lust and love keep two polar opposites together beyond the first night?” A new work created by Warner Brown and Joshua Schmidt, directed by Jenny Eastop. More here.
GREAT THEATRE
Vermin | Arcola Theatre | 14 Mar-4 Apr
Yay, more theatre, and this one is a fantastic, unsettling and darkly comical play about a couple with a rat problem. We interviewed the team behind it – Benny Ainsworth, Sally Paffett and Michael Parker of Triptych Theatre – this time last year, when it was previewing ahead of Brighton Fringe, so definitely read that to find out more about it and head to the Arcola website here to book yourself some tickets.
Macbeth | Southwark Playhouse | 14 Mar-8 Apr (pictured)
Another relatively recently featured production, this one, for we interviewed Henry Maynard of Flabbergast Theatre last summer about this very show, ahead of its appearance at the 2022 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. We are big fans of Flabbergast, and this particular interpretation of the Scottish Play is definitely fabulous. Read the aforementioned Q&A here, and see the venue website here for tickets and info.
Ten Days | The Space | 14-25 Mar
“The People are furious and their new government can’t or won’t do anything about it. Over ten months a series of flukes, accidents and mistakes steered a newly free Russia from burgeoning democracy to the greatest political experiment of all time”. A comical political thriller by John Reed that follows Russia’s February Uprising and the Storming Of The Winter Palace, which sounds great, but, also great: you can see a livestream on 23 Mar. Click here.
MORE GREAT THEATRE
Trade | Pleasance Theatre | 20-25 Mar
Three more great theatrical options for you now, starting with ‘Trade’ at Pleasance Theatre, and this one features some rather important, pressing themes – specifically sex trafficking and sexual violence. It’s the work of the very talented Ella Dorman-Gajic, and tells the story of Jana, a young woman starting out in life who finds herself in a situation she never planned for. More info and tickets here.
Mohan: A Partition Story | King’s Head Theatre | 15-19 Mar
More compelling and important themes now, and another show that we heard about when it completed a critically acclaimed run at the old edfringe. It’s written and performed by acclaimed storyteller and theatre-maker Niall Moorjani, and explores the experiences of his grandfather, Mohan, who lived through the partitioning of India in 1947. For more information and to book, head to the venue website here.
You Are African First Before Anything | Omnibus Theatre | 19 Mar (pictured)
Last one for this week, and it’s a goodie, though it’s only on at Omnibus Theatre for one night, so be sure not to miss it. ‘You Are African First Before Anything’ explores the difficult relationship between a young British Nigerian woman and her very traditional mother, and their opposing perspectives on things like marriage, customs and feminism. See this page here for all the details and tickets.
