Shows on the Rise at VAULT Festival 2018: Split

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 have a chat with Tamar Broadbent and Emma Pritchard, the women behind new comedy SPLIT, about the inspiration for the show and their real life friendship.

The characters you play meet on their first day of secondary school. You two met at a later age but what were your first impressions?
E: You are so small.
T: You are so tall.

How long have you been working together?
T: We met five years ago when we were working on my first solo musical comedy show. We’ve spent all our time since either doing shows or drinking wine and thinking about Avril Lavigne.

What makes your friendship so good?
E: We can tell just by looking when the other person needs a poo.
T: Emma is a caring, brilliant and inspiring person. She’s also never annoyed with me for how long I have to leave the tea bag in before I can drink the tea.

What similarities do you share with the characters you play?
E: I’m like Charlotte in that she’s a bit of a nerd and when out for the evening we’d both have a slush puppy than get drunk. However Charlotte is an accomplished swimmer and I can barely get in and out of the bath without feeling afraid.
T: Ellie and I are both singers, overly interested in boys and unashamed fans of Blazin’ Squad, but I was a lot more ‘into’ school than Ellie is. I won a chess tournament once. Ellie would be mortified to know that she was being played by a chess champion.

Which part of the show are you most excited to perform in front of a live audience?
Both: the dance mat sequence.

Which noughties pop song would summarise your life right now?
E: Without a doubt – ‘I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman.’
T: I want to believe it’s Eminem’s ‘Lose Yourself’ but I’m probably more of an ‘Oops, I Did It Again.’

Why should people come and see SPLIT?
E: It’s so much fun and everyone needs cheering up because it’s winter and climate change is real.
T: There’s hilarity, heart, nostalgia, gel pens, MSN, hiding in bathrooms at parties, seeing your mum in the STD clinic and so much more. You’ll love it.

Split is running at the VAULT Festival in the Network Theatre from the 28th of Feb until the 4th of March at 18:15. Tickets and more information can be found here.