VAULT Festival 2018: Award-winning Joyous Gard Brings In Three New Shows (Preview)

LONDON – Joyous Gard made a stunning debut at the 2017 VAULT Festival with the award-winning Crocodile, and this year will be returning to the festival with a vengeance, with not one but three all new shows running between February and March. They’ve expanded their team to include some all new collaborators, and with VAULT, celebrate new writing and more promising new voices in theatre. Read about them in our preview below, and be sure to get tickets to them either online or in person at The Vaults at Waterloo.

Crocodile writer and performer Joe Eyre returns with yet another animal-themed dark comedy, this time surrounding a Tiger. It’s no more about strange babies though, as this time around, we follow Alice and Oli as they search for a new flatmate in London. Their answer comes in the form of a mysterious man dressed as a tiger, and he seems to be helping the friends through all their problems and past burdens. But really, who exactly is the man beneath this costume?

Directed by Will Maynard, Tiger tackles themes including love, friendship, grief and depression, while weaving in black holes and cheesecake, as Joyous Gard, with the support of English Touring Theatre, presents this off kilter show about how we continue to move forward even when the world stops making sense.

Tiger runs at the Network Theatre, 14th-18th February at 19.45, with a matinée on 18 February 2018 at 15.15. A limited number of 2-for-1 tickets available for 14 February, 15 February and 18 February. Tickets available here

Playing off the title of Harlan Ellison’s sci-fi/horror short story I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream, this new play from Abi Zakarian takes the form of a play-performance-art-protest-thing.Directed by Rafaella Marcus, six women play a game and jostle for space as they attempt address every single feminist issue in the span of just 60 minutes. Somewhere along the way, Ripley from Alien makes an appearance, and things quickly get trashed.

Originally a short play commissioned by Damsel Productions and Pint-Sized, I Have A Mouth And I Will Scream promises to be a comedic and sharp, foul-mouthed piece of new writing that tackles how all women want to be feminists, but sometimes, they’re really quite afraid of getting it wrong, as they yell really loud, turn it up to a great soundtrack, and descends into an angry riot dream. 

I Have A Mouth And I Will Scream plays at the Cavern, 14th-18th February at 21.00, with a matinée on 17th February at 16.30. A limited number of 2-for-1 tickets available for 14th, 15th and 18th February. Tickets available here

Offie-nominated playwright David K. Barnes of Wooden Overcoats and Michael Milne, come together in this black comedy about the perfect husband, the eponymous Timothy. Something must be amiss, because no man can be that perfect, and she begins to fear that he’s going to kill her. So of course she’d invite her best friends over for a meeting as they feed each other’s increasing paranoia. As panic rises and Timothy is about to finish making dinner in the kitchen, can these women escape from the house with their lives? 

Directed by Rafaella Marcus, Timothy is a co-production between Joyous Gard and Snatchback, a new company committed to improving representation of women on stage and in audio drama, created by Beth Eyre. Timothy promises to keep audience members guessing every step of the way and fill them with doubt all the way to the very end as they wonder where is the line between reality and fiction?

Timothy plays at the Studio at The Vaults, 14th-18th March at 18.00, with a matinée on 17 March at 15.00. Tickets available here

The Vaults are located at Leake Street, Waterloo, London SE1 7NN, while the Network Theatre is located at 246A Lower Road, Waterloo, London SE1 8SF. For more information, visit the official Vault Festival website here