Pretending to be Alice in Wonderland at The Vault Festival.

The Vault Festival allowed me to fulfill my long held fantasy of wanting to disappear down a rabbit hole to escape from the bustling metropolis. For six weeks the vaults tucked away beneath Waterloo station are home to series of experimental pieces of theatre, amongst these is a one woman show called Spark. In this reworking of the German gothic ballad Lenore,  we follow erratic red head Leo (Holly Campbell) and her drunken ramblings as she spouts her frustration that her solider boyfriend Will- who was due back on leave a fortnight ago has yet to arrive. Breaking the fourth wall Leo addresses the audience directly to apologize for her drunken stupor the night before, and poetically explains that she is “much more than gin and smudged mascara.” Whilst recounting the many quirks she finds endearing about Will, she is overjoyed to find him knocking at her door. He proposes to her, and the pair decide to set off a mysterious journey through the sea to a small hut where they first met. As soon as the couple leave Leo’s flat, any hope the audience had of an easy to follow narrative soon slips away, instead we were left to piece to together incomplete statements, surreal encounters and characters that may or may not be figments of Leo’s imagination.

A key theme that reverberates through Dissolve Theatre production is Leo’s loneliness. The vault’s high ceilings and cavernous nature provided an atmospheric backdrop for her isolation. Particularly during the moments when she was traipsing towards a distant hut, the location of the vault helped to intensify her distress at being all alone at sea. Campbell is clearly a good actress, whose forte appears to be expressing extreme emotions. However, the speed at which she flitted from whimsical light hearted exchanges with Will, to screaming and cursing at the sky without any logical transitions, felt disjointed and schizophrenic. Lenore in Gottfried August Buerger’s original poem is clearly a complex character with a wide variety of emotions and perhaps it was a tad ambitious to try and cram all of these into just fifty minutes.

Neither myself or my companion had read the german ballad that Spark was based on. I personally couldn’t shift the niggling feeling that I would have gained a clearer understanding of the evening if I had been familiar with the original work. Although this modernised retelling of Lenore was lyrical and compelling in parts, there seemed to be a greater emphasis on evoking a surreal ambience rather than telling the story in a way that was easy to comprehend. Even with a more well known text, surely it is an oversight to rely on your entire audience having read the work as a prerequisite to be able to engage fully with the show.

Although Leo and her mysterious tale failed to spark my imagination, the real star of the evening was the venue. As I emerged from the vaults, and left the secretive tunnels I felt like I had discovered a hidden gem right in the heart of London. 

 Spark is playing as part of The Vault Festival until the 8th of February, for tickets and more information please visit www.vaultfestival.com/spark 

Sam Mendes' King Lear in a word - faultless

Following his box office success with the Bond film Skyfall and his recent stage adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sam Mendes really is the director with the Midas touch. Naturally, upon hearing that The National’s latest production of King Lear was being directed by Mendes - I expected great things. Whether you were made to study King Lear at school, or are someone that has seen countless renditions, most people will have some level of familiarity with this canonical tale. 

Set in a totalitarian state, we find Lear (Simon Russell Beale) holding court to try and decide how best to divide his land between his three daughters. Lear believes that the degree to which a daughter loves and cares for their father should be proportionate to the amount of land that they should inherit. His oldest two children Goneril (Kate Fleetwood) and Regan (Anna Maxwell Martin) are forthcoming with exclamatory proclamations and false statements that Lear is the only person that they love in the entire universe, flattery that Lear finds very pleasing to hear. However, when Cordelia (Olivia Vinall) expresses her true love for him, she speaks plainly explaining that she loves him as a daughter should. Cordelia’s honest retort angers Lear so much that he decides to disown her. A bad judgement that sparks a bleak series events that ultimately lead to his demise. 

The backbone of any production of King Lear, is establishing Lear as a powerful and well respected figure at the start of the piece, so that his descent into madness at the end of the play is a shocking and dramatic transformation. Mendes accentuates Lear’s militant prowess by surrounding him with a forty strong army of men whom he barks orders at in manner that borders on an impersonation of Brian Blessed. However, as his power and control over his own fate begins to fade, his number of followers also depletes rapidly, until a pint-sized Beale is left exposed, vulnerable and all alone -  albeit the blinded Earl of Gloucester, the beggar man Poor Tom and his Fool, who are the only men willing to stand by his side. There is an undeniable sense of foreboding that palpitates magnificently through out this production. It is cleverly accomplished through the use of projections of dark storm clouds and the sound of claps of thunder during the scene changes, that would suddenly disappear as soon as the scene started, exploring the idea that Lear’s inevitable demise is inescapable as it’s perpetually lurking in the background. Although using pathetic fallacy isn’t a particularly subtle or novel device, in this instance it was extremely effective. 

Beale is everything you could hope for in a Lear, as he embodies the titular characters physiological torment splendidly. His performance is however indebted to the superb supporting cast such as Maxwell Martin’s sultry and vindictive Regan who venomously shrieks with glee as Lord Glouchester’s eyes are gouged out.For me, some of the finest and memorable moments were those shared by Lord Gloucheter (Stephen Boxer) and Edgar (Tom Brooke), Gloucheter blind and unaware that the man leading him and providing comfort in his time of need is in fact his illegitimate son in disguise (as the beggar man Poor Tom) makes for some very heartfelt and moving exchanges. Brooke’s unhinged and whimsical nature as Edgar is both captivating and intriguing. 

This production of King Lear is tragic, comical and has a haunting quality that lingers in the air long after you have left the Olivier Theatre. It really is a stellar piece of theatre, though if you are prone to being squeamish I’d highly recommend that you look away during the scene where a Gloucheter’s eyes are brutally gouged out with a spoon... 

King Lear is being performed at The National until May 25th, and will be broadcast live in cinemas worldwide on May 1st, for tickets and more information please visit www.nationaltheatre.org.uk