Annie McKenzie in Happiness is a Cup of Tea at Vaults 2016.

I’ve always had a bit of a thing for potholing, so naturally VAULT Festival holds a very special place in my diary. Just like a good cave, the season that unfolds under Waterloo station contains an element of the uncertain, a mild chance of danger and that thoroughly awakening, sour and organic aroma. Finding myself short of a hard hat, yet with a thirst for a little bit of risk on a Friday night, I signed up for three shows by solo female performers. I was met, in turn, with welly-sporting existentialism, daffodils and splashes of cold water. Turns out I’m not too far from the Brecon Beacons.

In Happiness is a Cup of Tea, Annie McKenzie as the character Fiona Nash works with the rugged nature of her venue, using noisy electric fans inside the red-brick railway arch to bring the natural elements into this confined space. While the violent gusts do little to circulate the thick, moist air, and lots to unsettle the dust that coats the floor, Nash marches in with torch, backpack, yellow waterproof and matching wellies – bringing in the true, clean and colourful image of a city dweller returning to the country. In a monologue centred around coming to terms with the death of her mother, Nash delivers a collage of experience, memory, feeling, myth and doubt, and gives a textured performance that is part therapy patient, part wronged child, part existential poet and part Puck. There’s a power in how Nash sends cliche and strained rhetorical questions ringing through her space, and communicates the nonsensical force of a grief that makes her feel she “could kill” the deceased.

So honest and big-hearted is this show, so likeable is its performer, it feels wrong to criticise the theatrical potential of this form of bereavement – but the chaotic presentation of stories and doubts occasional seems positioned to serve speaker more than audience. When a cup of tea is brewed onstage, a lot of detail goes into the process – a blanket is laid out on the floor, a gas fire lit, and a tiny box brought out to dispose of the used tea bag – but we’re left with the sense that this symbolic concoction could’ve been knotted deeper into the fabric of the script. It’s tough to make a complex, troubled journey into understanding feel like a complete piece, and it’s a shame that Nash doesn’t quite accomplish this goal here. Maybe a nice round of tea would’ve helped to break the ice.

If there’s anything I like more than raw performance art, it’s performance art contained within a familiar TV storyline. You really get the full streamlined experience here – the earthy hand waving, the edgy words, the glitter, the real or implied nudity – but nothing is going to distract you from the meat of the episode. Tim and Daisy go back to getting stoned, Hannah Horvath resumes her lousy Brooklyn sex. Art has happened, the world lies unchanged.

In Lily Ashley’s You Are Me And I Am You, we get a lot of the same. Dressed in flimsy white clothes, and clutching a bouquet of flowers, Ashley transforms from gentle nymph to bitter ranter, sprinkling her performance with rhyming couplets that, in their sentimentality and predictability, verge dangerously close to Clintons territory. Following an ostentatious introduction – a proud acceptance speech where she only has herself to thank – Ashley appeals to the audience, presenting herself as an “empty vessel ready for loving”, poised to offer herself up to the next person who will have her.

There’s an interesting balance of neediness and confidence in Ashley’s performance, as she looks across the crowd for reassurance and affirmation, while spinning a web of her own sensual allure. There’s promise, too in her curious depiction of a narcissism that demands an active witness. Ashley’s delivery is marked by something ethereal and malleable, but there’s also a sense of desperation – like the floaty nature of this performance masks a lack of commitment or conviction. “Have I been a bad girl?” Ashley coyly enquires, before descending into a litany of demons. Anxiety, depression, anger, hurt, and fear all get a mention. I can only imagine that, like me, she’s a fan of this scene from Spaced.

Isn’t it great when you can see a drenched woman dressed as her own genitals, wearing goggles and drooling half chewed banana… and know for a fact that you helped make this happen? While McKenzie and Ashley’s pieces could be criticised for their lack of direction, Helen Duff knows exactly where she wants to be by the end of SMASHER, and energetically employs audience members to bring both her and her show to a climactic finish.

Of course, anyone would be very lucky indeed to drag a female orgasm out for sixty minutes, so it makes sense that Duff starts the performance in a different costume. “I’ve come dressed as a sperm this evening as I wanted to create a sexy, sexy vibe”, she purrs early in the show with a cartoonish vibrancy, dressed in a running jacket, leggings and beanie, and promising as much life as her single-celled muse. Taking the same performance space used by McKenzie, Duff builds a ironic set of creative reasons why she ended up at this particular venue, comparing her surroundings to a suitably provocative “1995 Baghdad sex well”, and boasting that the rumbling of trains overhead is “layered on especially” to signify the blood in the testicles. A pair of cameras are set up so that Duff can capture the joyous moment for her Gran. Shame, meanwhile, is nowhere to be seen.

Built on a mix of scripted and spontaneous comedy, SMASHER is a strong and tickling set. There’s a stark honesty here and, as our performer goes around asking audience members for nuggets of their sexual histories, a strong rapport is built, leaving the sense that trust runs both ways. After confessing that she has never experienced sexual climax, Duff plots her history of chasing the big O, from the lovers and their clichéd promises, to the workshop where she lay out of her depth and ‘about to drown in other women’s ejaculate’. Failing to come, both between the sheets and at these meets, Duff explores orgasm through second-hand retellings, and races towards la petite mort through the sum of its comparisons – using a box of props, fruits and liquids and a wealth of audience interaction to help her on her way. I sure am glad I came.

All three shows were on as part of Vaults 2016, which runs until 6th March 2016. Click here for details.