Wishing you all a Happy New Year!
So I promised to tell you my favourites theatre pieces out of all I’ve seen this year…wait…last year. So here’s all I saw in no particular order.:
The Dark Room (Theatre 503)
The Goats (Royal Court)
Book of Mormon (West End)
Our Ladies of Perpetual Succor (West End)
Girl from the North Country (Old Vic)
Zeraffa Giraffa (Clapham Omnibus)
Road (Royal Court)
Don Juan in Soho (West End)
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (West End)
Angels in America Parts 1 & 2 ( National Theatre)
Yerma (adaptation) (Young Vic)
My family: not the sitcom (David Baddiel)
Mumburger (Old Red Lion)
Trouble in Mind (Print Room)
Labour of Love (Headlong)
The Treatment (Almeida)
Mary Stuart (Almeida)
An Inspector Calls
Barber Shop Chronicles (National Theatre)
I can’t claim to have enjoyed them all, but know a lot of work and care went into them all. One did contain live animals…I’ll let you guess which one. One made me miss my (spiritual & former) home. One had me laughing from the get go. One of them had me wishing to get up there and redirect it. No, I didn’t. Politeness etc prevented me. That & the fact it already had a director.
Ok top 5:
Zeraffa Giraffa ( A brilliant children’s show about the first giraffe in Europe. Uses puppets, actors & song.)
Barber Shop Chronicles (Tales from around Africa & Peckham about what makes men. Funny & poignant.)
Our Ladies of Perpetual Succor (Scottish convent school girl choir takes on Edinburgh & life. Sorry, it should be LIFE!)
Who’s Afriad of Virginia Woolf? ( So great play with a powerhouse performance from Imelda Staunton.)
Angels in America Parts 1 & 2 ( Yes I’d seen the tv series & yes I knew it’d move likely move me, but Andrew Garfield and Nathan Lane made it so much more. Oh & the Kaddish moment in part 2…so many feelings.)
That’s it.
A special mention to two performances that really made me almost wish to tread the broads. Almost. David Tennant in Don Juan in Soho. I still think the play is lopsided but woah! And then Tanya Moodie as Wiletta in Trouble in Mind. Hats off!!
Let’s see what this year brings.