2011 Retrospective – The Top Ten Plays

written for The Spectator, 16 December 2011

66 Books – The Bush Theatre

The Bush opened its new theatre with an extraordinarily energetic celebration of the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. The 66 playlets, one inspired by each of the books of the Bible, included the occasional dud – but the overwhelming majority were sparklers. Stand-outs included Ony Uhiara as Esther, no longer an unwilling biblical wife but instead a courageous innocent fighting to survive the horror of human trafficking; Obi Abili in Tom Well’s tragicomic reworking of the Samson story; and the gentle mystery of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s own offering, a newly penned version of the resurrection of Lazarus.

It was a fitting farewell from Josie Rourke, as she moves on to inherit Michael Grandage’s legacy at the Donmar Warehouse, and a sign of exciting things to come from collaborator Christopher Haydon as he moves on to head up the Gate Theatre in Notting Hill. And when else would I have had the chance to tweet 66 play reviews in 24 hours?

Accolade – Finborough Theatre

Blanche McIntyre kicked of the year in fine style with her fluid production of this rediscovered tale of a Pinteresque novelist who finds his rough-trade recreations are incompatible with his emergence as a public figure It reminded us just how talented Saskia Wickham and Aden Gillett are; that press intrusion and media blackmail didn’t start in the 1990s; and that it’s still possible to be thoroughly shocked by how some people had sex in the ’50s.

King Lear – Donmar Warehouse

Quite simply, the best King Lear many of us are likely to see. Derek Jacobi was petulant yet fragile as the king; Gina McKee and Justine Mitchell brought a brittle dignity to his bitter daughters; and Michael Grandage’s spare staging allowed old hands like Ron Cook and Michael Hadley to speak with ethereal clarity. As my companion said, with tears in her eyes, ‘It’s not about a play about pain. It’s about love.’

Secret Consul – Limehouse Town Hall

Although not strictly a play, this was too powerful to omit from a top ten list. Steve Tiller and Andrew Charity’s production brought a rotating cast of East London refugees together to perform Gian-Carlo Menotti’s difficult opera about the numbing frustrations of the refugee experience. In an authoritarian state, Magda’s husband has been ‘disappeared’; her friends are tortured, and she sits everyday in the halls of a foreign embassy, waiting for that elusive visa to freedom. Devised to fit the increasingly derelict drabness of Limehouse Town Hall, this remarkable production saw us being led through the echoing corridors of bureaucracy by performers who knew too well the pain of which they sung. It was exactly what arts funding is for; we can only hope it returns for a longer run.

The Tempest – Barbican Centre

No, not Trevor Nunn’s sugar-coated snooze fest with Ralph Fiennes, but Cheek by Jowl’s revelatory all-Russian production. Prospero became King Lear on a blasted heath, cradling his soon-to-be-lost daughter. Breathtaking.

Bound – Southwark Playhouse

After winning a spate of awards at the Edinburgh Festival in 2010, Jesse Britton’s claustrophobic vision of the fishing industry came to London for a hit run. It held a mirror to a dark world pressured by fishing quotas, changing migrant labour patterns and century-old feuds – and suggested great things to come from this young company.

Betty Blue Eyes – Novello Theatre

If only this sweet-tempered, catchy musical had thrown the star power in its history into its marketing campaign. Based on Alan Bennett’s classic film A Private Function, which starred Michael Palin and Maggie Smith, this even featured the voice of Kylie Minogue in the closing moments. But without any of these names being used to create much publicity, this moving tribute to austerity Britain wasn’t recession-proof in a West End saturated with films stars, and closed after only five
months. A crying shame.

The Passion – National Theatre of Wales

At Easter, Michael Sheen achieved the impossible by stealing headlines from the Royal Wedding with his street theatre Passion Play. If you didn’t make it down to Wales on the second-busiest bank holiday of the year, you can always catch up on YouTube

Cause Celebre – Old Vic

A high point of the year’s Rattigan centenary, Anne-Marie Duff and Niamh Cusack were perfectly balanced as a transgressive seductress and the straitlaced jurywoman who has to judge her murder trial.

The Animals and Children Took to the Streets – BAC at the National, Cottesloe

Theatre company 1927 are ending the year with this exceptional marriage of live animation and physical theatre. Not your average children’s Christmas show.