NEWS: As its’ future hangs in the balance, VAULT Festival’s organisers again breathe creative life into Lower Marsh – this is ‘A Pinch of VAULT’ 2023

Furthering their cause of platforming creative work from the underrepresented, challenging and unheard, Lower Marsh will play host to VAULT Creative Arts’ second annual A Pinch of VAULT next week. Over 60 performances will take place in ‘The Glitch’ and ‘Sino Thai Restaurant’, as the organisers continue their hard-fought battle for the festival’s future. The creatives behind the shows arrive in Waterloo from all works of life, with an emphasis on work from migrants, refugees, the LGBTQIA+ community, disabled performers, Neurodiverse performers, as well as working class artists and those from African and Asian diaspora.

Accessibility is the word on the lips of Programme Producer Adele Reeves, who said “I believe that A Pinch of VAULT is particularly important, as it gives space to work that is in the middle of its creative process, and might not yet be ready for a more formal setting. It enables artists to test out their work and take the artistic risks they need to take without financial or creative fear.”

Such spaces are fraught and far-between as a cost of living crisis squeezes the wallets of performers and audiences alike. Meanwhile, Arts Council England’s decision last year to cut £50 million worth of grants to London-based creatives sieves out a modicum of pre-established and privileged work onto the capital’s stages in its’ wake. With VAULT Festival’s organisers in need of a further £100,000 to secure its’ continually ground-breaking and record breaking success, it is hard to see an arts scene in any light other than crisis these days.

Praise be then, to the artists willing to put their work, in whatever form and finish it takes, to the streets of Waterloo for a month of test, trial and revelation. The programme is split down the middle with the opening fortnight, beginning this coming Wednesday 24th May, dedicated to comedy, and the latter, beginning from Tuesday 6th June, dedicated to theatre and performance. Among the exciting works on display is Active B!tch Face Theatre’s Violent Circumstances, an unfiltered, angry and darkly comic piece written in response to the murder of Sarah Everard. Also intriguing is Masiza & Van Den Hende’s A RITE OF PASSAGE, exploring a father-son relationship against the cultural backdrop of being an immigrant and a young black man in the UK today.

VAULT Creative Arts again demonstrate a healthy dose of resilience in a terrifying world for artists – let A Pinch of VAULT be sanctuary to the wounded creative, and a warm and fuzzy atmosphere descend on London’s most exciting performance bonanza. Tickets are now on sale for shows across the A Pinch of VAULT Programme.