My top ten shows of the year

It’s that time of year again...

But before I launch into my frankly embarrassingly overthought top ten shows of 2019, a small personal announcement. This is probably going to be my last regular blog post. I’d love for there to be some big, exciting, dramatic reason for this but in truth it’s pretty simple: I don’t really have time anymore (no big reason, just life) and, honestly, I’m not enjoying blogging as much as I used to. I still love theatre, I’ll still be going to the theatre and I’ll still be tweeting about theatre - so you won’t be entirely deprived of my thoughts on the subject. They’ll just be considerably more concise. Which I imagine is a relief to all of us. 

Thanks to those of you who have read and supported the blog over the years. I’m not deleting it, and who knows I might pick it up again in the future. But for now, I just want to watch some shows without worrying when and how on earth I’m going to spin 600 words out of them.

Anyway, on with the show(s). It’s been another good year I think with the top five shows on this list in particular being amongst some of the best things I’ve seen in the theatre, ever.

1. Death of a Salesman, Young Vic

Marianne Elliot and Miranda Cromwell’s incredible production, setting the Loman family as African American, was visionary. The production faultless. A quartet of unbelievable central performances from Wendell Pierce, Sharon D Clarke, Arinze Kene and Martins Imhangbe, and an absolutely definitive production of this play for me.

2. Present Laughter, Old Vic

Matthew Warchus’ decision to gender swap one of the characters in this classic Noel Coward made it feel utterly contemporary and Andrew Scott’s leading performance was note perfect (Scott and Wendell Pierce were in an absolute league of their own in terms of acting this year - they should hack the Olivier statue in half for them). Riotous, sad fun. I’ve rarely laughed so hard in a theatre.

3. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Bridge

A second year of immersive Shakespeare at The Bridge and a second utter triumph. Nicholas Hytner’s production with Bunny Christie’s mind boggling design was a joy. The updated text worked brilliantly. Oliver Chris delivered some of the most hilariously deadpan asides I have ever seen. The most fun I’ve ever had in a theatre. 

4. Emilia, Shakespeare’s Globe (West End)

I missed this at The Globe last year but fucking hell was I glad to catch its transfer. Quite simply a brilliant, brilliant play, beautifully performed (especially by the majestic Clare Perkins). And that last speech...

5. Fairview, Young Vic

A show that is impossible to review or summarise - you just have to see it. So bold, so inventive, so perfectly done. Ferociously clever. Deeply uncomfortable viewing. A worthy Pulitzer winner and a justified sellout.

6. [Blank], Donmar Warehouse

The best plays are often not the easiest to watch and Alice Birch’s brilliant, innovative and enraging piece on women in the criminal justice system was certainly a case in point. I laughed, I cried, I wanted to punch something. A gem.

7. Downstate, National Theatre

Speaking of difficult pieces, this incredible play about sex offenders was at times almost impossible to watch. But it was also undoubtedly one of the bravest, most intelligent and most moving plays I saw this year. In a pretty decent year for the NT, this was a real shining light - and exactly the sort of high stakes risk I wish they would take more often. Some towering performances, notably from K Todd Freeman, were the cherries on this complicated cake.

8. A Very Expensive Poison, Old Vic

Lucy Prebble’s joyously genre defying playing abut the murder of Alexander Litvinenko was in no way what I thought I’d signed up for - and I loved it all the more for that. Reece Shearsmith produced one of my surprise acting wins of the year as Vladimir Putin. A brilliant example of how irreverent form and serious subject matter can work together to produce something truly memorable and impactful.

9. Sweat, Donmar Warehouse (West End)

Another transfer I was thrilled to catch, Lynn Nottage’s masterpiece state of the (American) nation play was a marvel. Gritty, funny, hard hitting and a better explanation of how we got into this mess than any academic or journalistic attempt I’ve read. The ending almost broke me.

10. War Horse, National Theatre

About a million years late to the party, I finally saw War Horse in January. Eleven months later and I’ve almost stopped crying about it. A legendary production for so many very good reasons.

Close But No Cigar

A big clutch of shows just lost out to Joey for a spot on my list, but I wanted to mention them anyway: 

• Anomaly at the Old Red Lion was the best Weinstein play around
• In a year of a lot of great Arthur Miller The Old Vic’s inventive staging of the lesser known The American Clock was great
• Rufus Norris’ National Theatre finally found its stride with the profoundly moving Small Island, wildly innovative Anna, bonkers Peter Gynt and soulful Three Sisters all rocking my theatrical world.

The Wooden Spoon

It wouldn’t be my year end round up if I didn’t slag off an NT show and the interminable and dreary Rutherford and Sons takes the mouldy biscuit this year. When not even the great Roger Allam can save your show then you know you’ve misfired. 

Theatre Review: Fairview

Welcome to my last review of 2019. As a little Christmas gift to you all, it will also be one of my shortest. You’re welcome.

The show I’m reviewing is Fairview, rightful winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for drama and currently enjoying a justifiable sellout run at the Young Vic. And that’s the review really: it’s brilliant, if you can possibly get a ticket - good luck with that - then you should.

Written by Jackie Sibblies Drury, who is clearly an actual living genius, I don’t really want to tell you anything about the play itself. You should go in as blind as possible. You probably know it’s a play about race and about contemporary attitudes to race and that’s really all you need to know. It’s form is non-traditional. It is ferociously clever; brilliant, brilliant writing. Hilarious, spectacularly uncomfortable, deeply complex, devastating, cruel, grimly hopeful. It avoids every single obvious point about race and every single obvious way of making the points it makes instead. It’s thrilling and awful and amazing to watch.

Directed by Nadia Latif, who has an absolute grip on what this play is and what it needs to make it work, the production is as close to alchemy as it’s possible to get. Tom Scutt’s design is perfect (if you’re a fan of Scutt’s work on A Very Expensive Poison up the road at The Old Vic then you’ll enjoy this too). The costumes are astonishing. Sound designer Xana does amazing work. Choreographer Malik Nashad Sharpe’s moves are totally on point. It’s a gem of a production.

A gem of a cast too. Again, saying too much in this regard would be a spoiler but the small cast are fully invested in the play and it shows. They’re all pitch perfect. The highlight is undoubtedly Donna Banya, who is utterly electrifying - the more so as it becomes more obvious what is actually going on in the play. But there’s strong work all round here. Everyone is on top of their game.

Look, I’m aware this is a weird review. Trying to tell you why to see a show whilst saying almost literally nothing about it is beyond my limited powers as a writer. But see it you should. Because my goodness what a show Fairview is. 

Fairview is at The Young Vic until January 23rd. The run is sold out, but returns are available online and in person each day. Queue for them.

I sat in seat A13 - the middle of the front row of the stalls - for this and paid a frankly embarrassing £10. If you have any choice in the matter, and you’re unlikely to, it’s a great seat.

Theatre Review: Three Sisters

As National Theatre marketing strategies aimed precisely at me go, the phrase ‘a new play by Inua Ellams after Chekhov’ was always going to have a success rate of 100%.

Three Sisters, Ellams’ fresh take on the Chekhov play, uproots the titular family from mother Russia to Nigeria during the Biafran Civil War. As someone whose knowledge of the original is based purely on Wikipedia I shouldn’t be trusted at an authority on this, but I believe the plot is largely untouched. It’s the setting, the emphasis and the interpretation that are different.  More importantly - fidelity to the original not being high on my priority list nor something I can accurately judge - it’s the setting, the emphasis and the interpretation that make for a fascinating and engaging piece of theatre.

For me, what makes this Three Sisters so good is that it works on multiple levels: it’s a great story first and foremost, it’s recognisably Chekhovian (if that’s important to you), it’s a brilliant history play about a piece of history that I was 100% ignorant of, it’s a powerful critique of foreign intervention (and non-intervention) in African politics, and it’s a deep and moving play about identity, and identity politics, too. Set in the 1960s and 70s it may be, but the issues it speaks to feel fresh off the page. There’s brilliant and troubling exploration of what makes someone The Other, and when and how someone who was previously not The Other can become so, in particular. Ellams’ writing is always so multifaceted and so beautiful and this is no exception. 

It’s also rather unexpectedly funny and, less unexpectedly, peopled by fantastically vivid, complex and human characters. The way Ellams has sculpted and tweaked Chekhov’s cast is brilliant. His versions feel totally his own, and the plot feels almost totally organic (the exception, for my money, being the final scenes’ predictable adherence to the rule about Chekhov plays and guns on stage). 

Directed by Nadia Fall, there’s no question that the play is a bit of a beast, clocking in at over three hours in length (authentically Chekhovian too I guess). But it doesn’t feel long at all. It positively zips along, even in some of the necessarily exposition heavy early scenes. It looks absolutely stunning too; Katrina Lindsay’s sun soaked, evocative and increasingly portentous set providing a brilliant and technically clever frame for the action. There’s an intriguing and sparse use of music too, courtesy of composer Femi Temowo, which includes great use of ‘chant poetry’ which really roots the play, not just geographically and historically but also firmly within an atmosphere of the past intruding on the present in unpredictable ways.

The large cast involved in bringing this story to life is equally strong. In a piece with so many ‘main’ characters it’s hard to single anyone out - and they all work so well as an ensemble - but for me the wonderful Sarah Niles is a clear highlight as oldest sister Lolo, a performance full of heart and joy and sadness. It’s great to see Ken Nwosu back on the NT’s stages too and his work as Ikemba, an at times not easily sympathetic character, is great. And I always love watching Sule Rimi. His Onyinyechukwu is one of the most interesting, despite not having masses of stage time, and Rimi is fantastic.

Look, there’s no question that Three Sisters represents a serious investment of your time. But it is worth it. This is a great piece, whether you have strong feelings on Chekhov or not, and it’s beautifully done in this production. 

Three Sisters is in the Lyttelton at the National Theatre until 19th February.

I paid for this one and sat in G9, a snip at £15.