A new piece by theatre company N2P (Nothing to Perform), commissioned by Battersea Arts Centre, will be showing for four nights this week. Helen is a fictional play based on the true, but little-known story of Britain’s first astronaut. In 1989, an ordinary woman from Sheffield, Helen Sharman, responded to an advert that said: “Astronaut wanted, no experience necessary.” At the time, she was working as a chemist at the Mars chocolate factory. Thousands applied for the position, but it was Helen who was recruited for Project Juno, and she set off to space two years later, aged just 27. 

The play imagines how this extraordinary story may have unfolded. The protagonist is shown as an insecure and directionless girl struggling with an absent, yet controlling love interest, an overbearing family and a tedious job. She mostly sits on her bed, making and receiving phone calls. Her sister calls her a “genius”, but she doesn’t show much ambition. When she is selected as the first British astronaut, she is completely overwhelmed by the resultant media attention and she must also withstand being separated from her family during the long training period in Russia. 

There are a number of elements that give the play an amateurish feel – like the overuse of ringing phones (and the short snappy conversations that follow), Helen’s exaggerated hyperventilating when she is anxious, or having the characters speak all at once to show the pressure being placed on the protagonist. These features could be overlooked if the story had been presented in a gripping way, but Helen portrays its lead as an apathetic person whose involvement in the space mission comes about randomly and, going by her attitude, perhaps unintentionally. This leaves a huge gap between the character and her mission. 

The only interesting elements are those belonging to the original story, but even then an opportunity is lost to create an engaging buildup or a strong foundation to make the audience connect with Helen. Nevertheless, the creators bring to the stage a fascinating story that deserves to be heard. 

Mersa Auda

Helen is on at The Vaults from 14^th until 17^th March 2023.

Read more reviews from our Vault Festival 2023 coverage here.

For further information about the event visit the Vault Festival website here.

Watch a trailer for the production here:

Melonade is by no means shy about criticising the Conservative government and the decisions they have made over recent years. Sadder is the fact that Turner’s own experiences of being failed by the education system were presumably guided by Labour government policy and things have gotten so much worse that the fight is to first bring back those lesser failures before we can actually start to think about how to not fail children. What’s also tragic is that this conversation is happening literally underground, in the dark, and not every day on national TV.

Despite the good message, Melonade faces a few issues. Some of the “fun” is a little forced, and the crowd is expected to whoop, cheer and bring the house down from the very first second, before anything has been done to earn that. The result is that it very much feels like it’s down to the audience to make the experience fun, so seeing it on a Friday night could be very different to a Tuesday night.

Turner is a great personality on-stage but her show just needs a little bit more to get the crowd going. What she does particularly well, though, is sprinkle just enough of her story throughout all the fun parts that the audience are heavily invested by the time they’re hit with the incredibly well-written emotional monologue at the end. 

Those who are willing to bring the noise, get up there and make their own fun will be in their element here. For everyone else, Melonade might feel a little contrived. 

Jim Compton-Hall

Read more reviews from our Vault Festival 2023 coverage here.

For further information about the event visit the Vault Festival website here.

Lulu Tam’s set is simple. Tables are positioned in the shape of the cross. A mother (Ruth Redman) clutches her newborn baby as the ensemble almost chants a religious hymn. The atmosphere is at first foreboding before morphing into awkward unease as a family awaits the return of their son (Elan Butler). His homecoming is brief. He does not plan on staying. When he learns he has been lured back home under false pretences after his sister (Molly Rolfe) lied that their mother was sick, he makes his feelings towards her known. He departs, only to immediately return as an alternative scene plays out. This time he is in the company of his fiancée (a hilarious and memorable Phoebe Ellabani). His actions are robotic, his speech repetitive. All is far from well, yet the family go through the motions and pretend it is.

Playing out like a trippy fever dream, we are forced to question what is real and what is fantasy just as our protagonist attempts to distinguish between the memories he has created and those that are genuine. It quickly becomes apparent that Mother rules the roost. She has ideals of what her family should be and how each member should behave. When her narrative is diverted, she simply writes a new version of their story. This perplexing puzzle of a play not only highlights the nonsensical nature of conversion therapy but also examines the idea of control. It looks at nature and how humans can attempt to deter one another’s preordained paths in the blind hope of forcing some sort of serenity. It looks at family dynamics, love, guilt and hope but does so in the most surprising of ways.

It is no overstatement to say the entire cast excels. Redman is compressed with conflicting emotions and buckling under her self-inflicted pressure to do what she perceives to be the best for her son. Timothy Harker as her husband captures the beat-down almost subservient role he has been forced to adopt and shares a particularly poignant scene with Butler. Butler has a mammoth task to fulfil but does so with apparent ease. His chemistry with the always impressive Alex Britt as a gay neighbour is enthralling and the actor instantly garners our empathy. We are immediately invested in his journey, despite its non-linear and at times puzzling presentation. It’s an assured and alluring performance.

Butler and Rolfe are also effortless together as brother and sister, with Rolfe exhibiting deep emotion as her character struggles to grasp what her brother has been through and more so why. Ellabani as aforementioned shines, ushering in some welcome laughs amidst the more unsettling aspects that dominate the 80 minutes.

They fly by exceedingly fast. Director Sam Edmunds allows enough breathing space for such weighty themes to be addressed and reflected on, however also ensures sleek, snappy scene transitions make for a pacey production. Tilda O’Grady’s movement direction provides startling imagery which commands our unwavering attention and allows a multitude of visuals in the absence of much scenery or props. They are not needed thanks to the strong performances and characterisation resulting from a carefully crafted script.

As many are aware, the Vault Festival has now been deprived of its home of 11 years. This polemic play only accentuates the calibre of talent and urgent writing the festival has become renowned for showcasing. Here’s hoping a new venue is secured so such storytelling and voices can continue to be heard.

Jonathan Marshall

Con-Version is at the Vaults as part of the Vault Festival from 14^th March until 19^th March 2023, for further information or to book visit here.

Read more reviews from our Vault Festival 2023 coverage here.

For further information about the event visit the Vault Festival website here.

In its official description, Time is classed as the story of a “middle-aged female cliché”. In the original, the protagonist – played by O’Flynn – uses technology to visit friends from her past. These characters, large cartoon women projected onto a screen, all appear to have it “better” than O’Flynn’s personage. Yet through her interactions with them, she somehow learns to reinvent her life. It’s an interesting concept, but one that – in the case of this particular matinee – was not delivered.

While theatregoers signed up for a piece of feminist fiction, they received something entirely different: Honesty Hour with Gaynor O’Flynn. Fed up of performing the same play over and over again, the creator and star of the abandoned Time performed instead an entirely unscripted and uncensored monologue of ideas. Her string of speech was broken up only briefly with partial statements from the digital characters of the original play and comments from engaged audience members.

Over the course of this strange hour, O’Flynn introduced personal anecdotes about her life, ticked off statistics about the gender divide within the creative arts and even sang a short rendition of an original song. Her tone remained consistently cutting and sarcasm dominated her speech. When pointing out how men dominate the tech industry and thus, also control the online algorithms that influence brain patterns, she raised the very fine question, “Would you let 99 men inside your brain?” 

Due to its off-the-cuff nature, it makes sense that much of this performance felt incoherent. O’Flynn’s strands of thoughts and words often diverged from one another in disordered pieces, without much fluidity or eloquence. Having said this, her overall sentiment remained clear. Within the hour-long deviation from usual programming, O’Flynn expressed tangible frustration with the lack of female voices in the creative industries, particularly women of a certain age – she herself is 59.

Not having seen Time in its fictional format, no feedback can truly be given on the play of that same name. What O’Flynn did on this day was a performance in its own right. However, it seems safe to say that anyone expecting a performance of Time would have been fairly disappointed in this particular show.

Madison Sotos

Time is at The Vaults as part of Vault Festival from 7^th March 2023 until 12^th March 12 2023. For further information, visit here.

Read more reviews from our Vault Festival 2023 coverage here.

For further information about the event visit the Vault Festival website here.

Given that the official blurb did what all well-written synopses do – try to sell the show to punters – one would not be mistaken in looking forward to “a dream-like experience inspired by fears and fuelled by hope: the fruitless attempts of finding love, embracing solitude and seeking acceptance”. But Fruits merely offers a well-intended but wrong-footed piece that one is impatient to finish.

Although performers Mimmi Bauer, Pat Dynowska and Michał Szpak, of theatre group Takadaja, utilise the expansive space of the Cavern well, most of their dialogue is missed, made more challenging by bad sound design and the various languages spoken. Experimental or fragmentary theatre can be great, but the issue here is that there are no connective threads, which culminates in a lack of substance. In one scene one sees the cast chew some fruit and spit it out (food wastage anyone?) and in another, Szpak is dressed as a fruit fly, buzzing around, trying to create humour. There are admittedly moments where the piece shows a little promise, such as when Bauer endlessly chases a spotlight, while, in another, Dynowska sits, everyone looking to her for action as she replies moodily, “What are you looking at? I’m just on my break”.

Takadaja have verve and are tenacious in their delivery, but Fruits, or the Decline of a Distant Memory falls flat, a fever dream one wishes to escape.

Selina Begum

Fruits, or the Decline of a Distant Memory was on at The Vaults for one performance only on 28^th February 2023.

Read more reviews from our Vault Festival 2023 coverage here.

For further information about the event visit the Vault Festival website here.

It is 1604 Gujarat, and we are in a port town; the East India Trading Company goes about its business, using slaves to trade. Noorjani’s monologue is powerful (the British “know nothing of the land they have arrived in”), immediately capturing the audience. Whether they are describing delectable foods like murgh dhal, paratha and yellow potatoes, or the events that ensued through Partition – in their grandfather’s words – the writer is a natural. 

Moorjani recalls how, before Partition, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs would celebrate each other’s festivals, living side-by-side in relative peace, while the British sought to aggravate their differences, and rule through the insidious method of divide and conquer.

As the playwright swiftly courses through the complex history of Partition (they only have an hour), they outline ideas behind the Empire, Winston Churchill and his problematic values, and Britain’s 200 years of ruling that the Indian populace fought to abolish. The actor shocks the audience describing how, when citizens galvanised, Britain’s response was to burn them to death. There is absolute silence as everyone listens with bated breath, Moorjani maintaining the their attention with ease through witty political commentary and moving real-life accounts. There is a lot of substance to the piece, which drives to the very heart of Partition: in one scene, Moorjani memorably reenacts a job interview between Lord Mountbatten and Cyril Radcliffe, the man who was responsible for dividing India and Pakistan, without real experience of the land or any idea of what he was doing (he had never been East of Paris and used outdated maps). 

This is an intensely personal story, and, even though millions experienced the forced division, Moorjani succeeds in shaping his grandfather’s own experience into genuinely good theatre that spurs audiences to research farther into one of the darkest parts of human history.   

Selina Begum

Mohan: A Partition Story was on at The Vaults for one performance only on 26^th February 2023.

Read more reviews from our Vault Festival 2023 coverage here.

For further information about the event visit the Vault Festival website here.

We are promised gig-theatre, and the soaring harmonised voices and jubilant freedom of folk improvisation is immediately transportive. Where we are going, however, no one could possibly predict. The trio introduce themselves: Fin (Rory Gradon) and Fiona (Elinor Peregrin) are a couple, soppily in love, and Sam (Elisabeth Flett) is “just a very talented musician they picked up along the way”. After exploring some innocuous fish-themed songs, the evening unravels when Fin becomes overwhelmed at the thought of his connection to his aquatic ancestors, referencing the Irish legend The Salmon of Knowledge. The band proceed to rather deftly weave Irish folklore and music with “Instagram infographics”, providing an engaging insight into the rich history and currently alarming plight of salmon (one in four kept in fish farms don’t survive to make it to the table). The audience are now swimming in a surrealist Seaspiracy. “Reach out your fins!” urges Fiona “you are all salmon!”. 

The anthropomorphic audience engagement is bemusing but effective when combined with a self-aware irony at the middle-class blackhole that is climate anxiety (“Tofu farmers are exploited and the avocado mafia are literally killing people!”). Peregrin is magnetic as Fiona, her commanding voice and expressive eyes urging everyone to emotionally invest in the atrocities of the climate crisis, while Gradon’s unwavering commitment to the absurd keeps the audience hooked. Pertinent questions are asked and solutions are hard to grasp in the mayhem, but the trio provide thought-provoking entertainment on a bedrock of musical skill. 

My Lover was a Salmon in the Climate Apocalypse requires a submissive sinking into the absurd, and it packs a chaotic, informative punch. The show is joyous nonsense with an evocative undercurrent of truth.    

Ellen Wilkinson

Read more reviews from our Vault Festival 2023 coverage here.

For further information about the event visit the Vault Festival website here.

Watch a trailer for the production here:

The play involves numerous cuts and jump starts throughout, yet Akybeze is a revelation. However, the storyline does create confusion, juxtaposed with the account of Merriman-Labor, or ABC as he is referred to. The actor breaks the fourth wall by telling us that his boyfriend wrote the play before he passed away, and Akybeze falls into a bout of melancholia, though it is unclear if he is portraying another person at this point. Empathetic as we may be, there are a certain number of mixed messages being presented. The stage direction is favourable, as are the props for the most part; but there is a lamp which, weirdly enough, is ABC’s lover, John Roberts, and makes no sense. 

Throughout the piece, the question of what is fiction and what is real arises often, which is perhaps the intention of writers Eloka Obi and Saul Boyer. The main highlight is Akybeze’s ability to carry the show, and his performance sparkles. 

There are themes of Queer Black identity, bereavement and race explored fairly, but the mix of bio-play, breaking of the fourth wall, and historical storyline does not work all that well. ABC wrote a book (recently republished) entitled Britons Through Negro Spectacles, a satirical spoof subverting the colonial viewpoint of the Empire, and this is loosely included in Five Years. 

The show would have functioned more fluidly had there not been extraneous characters, who make it hard for viewers to follow the narrative and become invested. Nonetheless, Akybeze’s performance goes from strength to strength. If only the piece reflected the evidently rich life of ABC and was better aligned.

Selina Begum

Five Years with the White Man is on at The Vaults from 9^th until 12^th March 2023.

Read more reviews from our Vault Festival 2023 coverage here.

For further information about the event visit the Vault Festival website here.

Trapped on the island of Capri, young Caligula (Noah Silverstone) encounters and strikes an alliance with the sea god, Neptune (Riko Nakazono), who advises and encourages him in aid of achieving his dream of dominance by killing emperor Tiberius and ascending to the throne. But once he has reached the peak of power, he fails in his duty, and his mind is soon thrown into fears of persecution and imminent danger. 

Caligula and the Sea is a neat and vivid fictional revisitation of the rumoured war waged by the emperor against the sea, brought by director Yuxuan Liu, one of the 2023 artists for Vault Five (the festival’s yearly mentoring programme). The show aims to present an account of the inherent motives that determined Caligula’s extravagances and the consequences of his ambition to rise to the level of a god. Famous for the horse-made-senator tale, the protagonist is no stranger to excesses; the production includes a fun musical moment expanding on this, but the second part could have developed these extremes. On the other hand, the origins and first signs of the boy’s aspirations are well timed in the script and delivered through engaging exchanges. The increasingly arrogant Caligula’s monologues (nicely light and effective in the wording) bring attention to the reasons behind the whole process. 

The tortuous relationship between totalitarianism, freedom and hubris is exposed here in the evolution of a man’s story. As in classic literature, the ever-present deity is a vague element that fluctuates among spirits and events. 

There is a playful synergy between Felix Ryder as Cassius Chaerea and Silverstone (as Caligula), with the latter delivering a spirited, poised performance. Their gestures and movements very much render the evolution of the drama. Some puppetry adds variety, whereas the choice of a white suit among the costumes is interesting for its instantaneous visual reference to the assertion of power. 

Cristiana Ferrauti
Photo: Craig Fuller

Caligula and the Sea is on at the Vaults from 28th February until 5th March 2023.

Read more reviews from our Vault Festival 2023 coverage here.

For further information about the event visit the Vault Festival website here.

Enter Sam, a 26-year-old on a date. At first, the room appears to be a study, clad with only a table in the centre and what looks to be an assistant arranging an appointment. But as events unfold, it is clear that this is a foreboding date with forbidden elements.

Sam (Sam Henderson) calls out to his date, Nick (Eddie Loodmer-Elliot), who appears shortly thereafter. Sam is quite the nervous wreck, while Nick comes across as calm and collected, but the two quickly begin their blossoming romance. Interspersed between moments in which they attempt to get to know one another – while Nick makes Sam’s last meal – is a relationship quiz, where participants ask 36 questions and then have to gaze at each other for four minutes. Taken from a study developed by psychologist Arthur Aron, the aim is to create mutual vulnerability.

Through the dark undercurrent and morbid matter, the creators of Fiji have succeeded in incorporating natural banter in the dialogue, as well as black comedy. Henderson and Loodmer-Elliot have sparkling organic chemistry and bounce off each other’s light and heavy energies very well.

Initially, it comes across as Sam being the unhinged one, but it soon transpires that it’s Nick with his unconventional tastes; although one can argue that Sam is deranged too, after all, he is offering himself to be eaten. Based on the shocking true story of German cannibal, Armin Meiwes – who ate a human volunteer – Fiji explores themes of love, family, trauma and male vulnerability while making us consider the ethics and morals that bind us. The ending is unexpected: violent and disturbing, with audience members visibly flinching when Nick starts battering a metal cabinet with a hammer.

With powerful performances from two strong leads, Fiji will leave you shaken with its take on consensual cannibalism, especially if you read the account of Meiwes and what he did to his victim.

Selina Begum

Fiji is at the Vaults from 24^th February until 25^th February 2023 as part of Vault Festival 2023. For further information or to book visit the theatre’s website here.