Making its much anticipated return to venues across Waterloo & South Bank in just one week, VAULT Festival is back and better than ever. The UK’s leading independent festival of live performance runs from 24th January – 19th March 2023, and features a programme of over 500 of the best shows from some of the brightest talents across theatre, comedy, cabaret and nightlife.
VAULT Festival Director & Co-Founder Andy George comments, VAULT Festival is full of transformational experiences. It’s unique in the way it positions artists at the forefront of its work. It puts them all under one metaphorical roof and it gives audiences such easy access to brilliant new work, at the beginnings of artists’ careers and in the beginnings of a show’s formation, and at very affordable prices. We have up to 40 shows per night so there’s a real buzz and energy to the space when you’re in the festival hub. You really have to experience it to believe it.
VAULT Festival works with a variety of partners across the festival, and without their continued support this incredible programme would not come to life. Co-sponsors WeAreWaterloo and South Bank London are both steeped in fringe culture, and VAULT Festival are proud to be a part of the vibrant cultural landscape of this leading London destination.
London’s Night Czar Amy Lamé comments, I am delighted that VAULT Festival is back with its
fantastic celebration of music, performance and art in the heart of London. From live music to
comedy and cabaret, there is a huge variety of entertainment to enjoy. Our capital is alive at night
and festivals like this play a key role in bringing people together and helping to drive our economic
and social recovery as we build a more prosperous city for all Londoners.
VAULT Festival are also proud to work with supporting partners London Borough of Lambeth, Lost and Grounded Brewers, White Light, Steeldeck Rentals, Stage Sound Services, Sea Containers Hotel, Wellbeing in the Arts and Nick Hern Books.
In 2023, VAULT Festival are partnering with Sustainably Run, a not-for-profit social enterprise. For every £1.23 raised at VAULT Festival, Sustainably Run guarantees to plant a lifesaving tree in a developing country to help offset the environmental impact, whilst helping to positively impact poverty around the world. VAULT Festival are also partnering with Wellbeing in the Arts this year, who provide individuals, productions and organisations with access to mental health and wellbeing support, and campaign for positive changes within the arts industries.
Alongside the dazzling theatre, comedy and cabaret programmes, The Flair Ground Lates are sure to light up those cold winter nights! Showcasing the brand-new venue for 2023, these late nights of entertainment will be the hotspot for the best and most diverse nights out in the city.
Kicking off with the beautifully brash Big Birthday Bash (27th January), VAULT Festival invites everyone to celebrate a decade of bold and original live performance with host Rhys’s Pieces. The House of Naked will also bring the hedonistic utopia of NAKEDpresents (3rd February) to VAULT Festival for a night that fuses drag icons, cabaret greats & circus legends into one queer spellbinding show & club night.
And the programme only gets bigger from there! MILK (4th February) is set to bring a unique night of diverse fun and naughtiness with its signature neo-burlesque, whilst performer Simon David invites audiences to a joyful, 5-hour cabaret spectacular in Simon David Presents Joie de Vivre! (10th February), featuring the best burlesque, drag, DJs and queer comedy acts. Uptown Swing’s The Lowdown (11th February) promises to be a night of vintage fun with golden age glamour and live music, and The Office Party (17th February) from BAIT allows workers to unite for a live-art night of anarchic immersive cabaret, accompanied by thumping beats and illicit water cooler moments.
VAULT Festival favourites House of Burlesque return with their mega silent disco Glitter Ball (18th February), Dykes on Mics (24th February) present a never-before-seen Crafty Creature Karaoke night with queer bangers, live drawing and lots of chaotic sapphic fun, and drag king collective Pecs present club cabaret extravaganza Icons (25th February). Get sinning with a cabaret disco dance party to leave you speaking in tongues with feminist, trash-pot party starters Church of Pussy Liquor (4th March), and black femme queer-led collective JuiceBox create an empowering strip club for all to enjoy with Make It Rain (10th March).
Strange Fruit Cabaret (11th March) gives revellers a raunchy romp through one hundred years of entertainment through the eyes of the black women who challenged racial and gender stereotypes through their creativity and bravery, and Lady Wildflower presents a St Paddy’s Day you won’t forget with Live & Stripping! (17th March), an evening of live music with internationally acclaimed burlesque artists and classic tunes that will keep you dancing all night!
The Flair Ground will also host a number of fantastic family shows across the festival. Cabababarave (28th January – 11th March) features a show-stopping cabaret interspersed with captivating baby sensory moments, and Traces of the Wind (28th/29th January) gives audiences a chance to explore an immersive landscape of the wind with installations, live sound, video, and objects. Hard-rocking family friendly extravaganza Mules (23rd February) is a chaos-fuelled adventure packed with daft games, fantasy and distorted guitars, whilst The Suitcase Storytelling Company’s The Girl and the Dragon (4th/5th February) highlights the power of stories and kindness to young audiences. Professor Slug’s House of Bugs (12th February) invites audiences to explore the lives of our tiny bug friends, and Shelf: The Kids Show (4th/5th March) presents an hour of sketches and silliness for all the family.
Audiences can immerse themselves in new worlds, experiencing both past and future. Discover what it’s like to survive a plane crash in Chronic Insanity’s interactive, improvised, storytelling show All Falls Down (24th – 28th January), and take a journey into a missing artist’s mind in Dread Falls Theatre’s Patient 4620 (7th – 12th February). Audiences are invited to walk through USSR labour camps and the theatres that were built inside in Theatre of Gulags (26th February), and Rooms Left Behind (14th – 19th February) draws on artists’ lived experience from Hong Kong and Moscow, Russia to present complicated identities and political immigration through an intimate immersive experience.
VAULT Festival are continuing to work with venues across the UK to bring thrilling new theatre to its capital. This year’s VAULT Festival’s Pick of Pleasance Award winner is Liv Ello’s experimental dark comedy Swarm, which explores the connection between expressions of white privilege and the behaviour of flies, and Manchester’s thriving cultural hub HOME brings Ugly Bucket’s smash Edinburgh Fringe hit Good Grief, fulfilling a dying wish with clowning and a thumping techno soundtrack.
VAULT Festival’s Pick of Summerhall Award Winner Intruder | Intruz comes to VAULT Festival with a heart-wrenching, unique and brutal true story of immigration and judgement. Revolutionary actor training company Fourth Monkey, leading drama school East 15, and VAULT Festival’s very own VAULT Young Company are bringing brazen and original work of the next generation of performance makers to the forefront in Generation V.
Other VAULT award-winners across the festival include the Excellence in Sustainability Award winner My Lover Was A Salmon in the Climate Apocalypse, which brings the climate revolution to the forefront of gig theatre after a successful run at 2022’s Edinburgh Fringe, and Excellence in Inclusion Award winner Best In Class, a crowd-funded, profit-sharing initiative that champions working-class comedians from across the UK, present a night of new comedy hosted by founder Sian Davies. VAULT Festival’s Excellence in Accessibility Award winner Part of the Main also bring a trio of captivating tales to this year’s festival – irreverent stand-up special Bloody Mary, the twisting, unsettling tale of The Tinker and All By Myself, a study into isolation and the online world.
Remember to head to vaultfestival.com for the full programme and to book your tickets to these must-see shows and many more – we can’t wait to see you!
