Shows on the Rise at VAULT Festival 2018: “You Having Olaf?” by Joseph Cullen

The VAULT Festival is coming to town! From January 24th to March 18th, over three hundred new shows explode across a festival of festivals in their Waterloo home. With new venues, new bars, new food and plenty of surprises, VAULT 2018 is the biggest, fairest platform in London for artists to present innovative, daring work. Here we find out more about award-winning Joseph Cullen’s “You Having Olaf?”

Winner of Best Newcomer at VAULT Festival 2017, Joseph Cullen’s “You Having Olaf?” fuses character comedy and stand up in a way that’s painful to watch and upsetting to be around. One reviewer claimed “the overwhelming urge to shake him has to be constrained” (Daniel Perks).

If you’re bored on the 26th of Jan

And you have no alternative plan

Head down to The Vaults

For some verbal assault

From a pitiful moustachioed man

“You Having Olaf” is the death rattle of a recovering children’s entertainer; from his decision to take the heinous job the first place, to his breakdown at a 6 year old’s birthday that made him think “maybe this job isn’t for me…”.

Unapologetically self-defacing and bleak, “You Having Olaf?’ features slam poetry, live action balloon modelling, and debilitating flashbacks of discos past.

“This is rogue creative writing at its comedic peak, and one wonders if Cullen might even consider publishing a poetry collection from virtue of the brilliance we saw tonight […] With an atom bomb’s worth of improper jests, “You Having Olaf?” is an outstanding, outrageous comedy” (bakchormeeboy).

“You Having Olaf?” is running at the VAULT Festival on Fri 26th Jan at 8.45pm. Tickets and more information can be found here.