– VAULT Festival 2022 has now been cancelled – VAULT Festival 2022 will see Scatterjam present two thought-provoking, female-led shows; Please, Feel Free to Share, a dark comedy about lies, likes, and blurring of the two, and DOXXX, a comic thriller about pleasure, shame and cancel culture.
Scatterjam, a performance company co-founded by writer Rachel Causer (When It Happens, Tristan Bates and Jetsam, The Criterion Theatre), is committed to creating exciting work led by women that is socially and politically engaged whilst being structurally explorative. Their first show, When It Happens (July 2019) received five-star reviews and was Offie-nominated.
Please, Feel Free to Share is a dynamic, darkly comic, one-woman show about our personal addictions, the never-ending pursuit of likes, and our growing desire to share all. Having already received a ‘Special Mention’ by the Popcorn New Writing Award 2021, this production directed by Liam Blain (A Girl Standing, Theatre503; Associate Director – Cinderella, Nottingham Playhouse; REFRACT, King’s Head Theatre) has been programmed for a full run at Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2022.
Please, Feel Free to Share not only showcases timely themes but showcases a central female character in an unusual light: the anti-hero; the charming sociopath; the one we like despite ourselves. When her father dies, Alex (Róisín Bevan, co-founder of Scatterjam; When It Happens, Tristan Bates; The Lost Matriarch, Ed Fringe Fest; Lucrece, The Cockpit) reluctantly joins a bereavement group. She shares a little, and then lies a lot – until reality comes knocking. Please, Feel Free to Share is a funny, gritty, observation about the addictive nature of ‘likes’ and lies.
Scatterjam’s latest show DOXXX will also premiere at VAULT 2022. Written to explore the risky world of cancel culture and the theme of personal shame, DOXXX is a show that takes being publicly shamed one step further, to ask whether there is ever an undercurrent of pleasure and thrill in the idea of being called out publicly.
This three-hander, directed by Nadia Papachronopoulou (Unrivalled Landscapes, Orange Tree; The Whisper Tree, Royal & Derngate; Boots, The Bunker) is centred around a social activist who is drawn into an online game of cat and mouse when she starts being doxxed anonymously about a shameful past. The show taps into the complexities of punishment and pleasure and interrogates the differences between who we appear to be and who we really are.
Rachel Causer comments “Scatterjam are delighted to be presenting a double-bill of shows at VAULT Festival 2022. I am fascinated by contemporary online phenomena such as sad-fishing and doxxing, which are explored in these plays. Writing both Please, Feel Free to Share and DOXXX has allowed me to highlight and challenge the form of everyday online interactions by presenting them in real-life contexts and finding the most innovative and interesting ways to show that to an audience.”
Please, Feel Free to Share is at VAULT Festival’s Crypt 8th – 13th February 2022 and DOXXX is at the same venue 15th – 20th February 2022.
