Shows on the Rise at VAULT Festival: GUN by William Hartley

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 catch up with Will Hartley and his one-man Western GUN.

A man was left for dead in the desert. But if you kill someone, you better make sure they’re dead – first rule of a murder, isn’t it?

A bold, one-person, multi-character comedy Western show written and performed by William Hartley (‘Tracey Breaks The News’ (BBC1), ’The One Griff’ (BBC1) ‘Cardinal Burns’ (E4) and BAFTA-nominated CBBC sketch show ‘FIT’)

William is best known for his work with award-winning sketch group Clever Peter, with whom he co-wrote and starred in five sell-out Edinburgh Fringe shows, toured nationally, and created a critically acclaimed Radio 4 series, ‘Strap In – It’s Clever Peter.’ (Pozzitive).

He recently performed in the late Snoo Wilson’s Multi-Offie-Nominated (and Winning!) ‘Lovesong Of The Electric Bear’, which transferred to the Arts Theatre.

Here he met Assistant Director Phil Croft (Associate Director of the Hope Theatre) with whom he then worked on sell-out fringe show Contactless.

William had the ambitious and hubristic idea of bringing an epic Western movie to the stage. But with one actor playing over thirty characters, a strong female lead, and minimal set. It had to be funny, fast-paced, and have heart. So, together, they created GUN.

And VAULT Festival is the perfect place to perform. Not only are the spaces wonderful, but ethos of the whole festival is wonderful. Phil and Will are looking forward to gorging themselves on as many shows as they can, treats they wouldn’t have normally known about, and drinking in the bar, and making some new friends.

And, hopefully, people will want lose themselves for an hour, to step inside the world of GUN to meet Roscoe ‘Blackjack Porter’; laugh with him, and maybe even cry with him. We are looking forward to it.

GUN is performing at the Waterloo East Theatre as part of VAULT Festival from the 31st of Jan to the 4th of February at 19.45. Tickets and more information can be found here.