2014 in Review: Theatre

Undoubtedly my favourite thing about 2015 has been the amount of fantastic theatre I've managed to cram in. But then I suspect you know that already, given the amount I blog about it.

This is definitely the most difficult year end post I've written. Although I knew instantly what my top picks would be, sorting out the rest of the fantastic (and not so fantastic) stuff I've seen this year into a rough order has been really hard. I feel like I need to apologise to the shows that narrowly missed the cut, which is clearly all kinds of ridiculous.

So, after much agonising, here are my top ten shows of 2015…

Macbeth (Park Avenue Armoury) 
There is no way that any other show was going to get a look at the top spot in this list. I travelled half way round the world to see this production at New York’s astonishing Park Avenue Armoury, which you'll recall I’d already seen in 2013 at the Manchester International Festival. With standout performances from Kenneth Branagh and Alex Kingston and jaw dropping staging (remembering the opening fight scene still gives me goosebumps), I genuinely believe that this is the best production I’ll ever see. And it’’s a complete privilege to have seen it (twice).

Wolf Hall/Bring Up The Bodies (RSC)
Ok, so having two shows as one entry is sort of cheating (get used to it, I’m going to do the same thing again in a few places time) but it’s kind of impossible to separate these two given they were staged on the same set with the same cast, and I saw them on the same day. I love these books so it was thrilling to watch them come to life, in a largely very faithful adaptation, with such a superb cast. Ben Miles as Cromwell is probably my London performance of the year (and Nathaniel Parker’s Henry VIII would also be on that list) but the whole cast was superb, with a fantastic script to work with too.

Behind the Beautiful Forevers (National Theatre) 
The first of many NT productions to make my top ten, I just loved this show. The script, the set, the fantastic sound and lighting effects (still not over that plane) were all fantastic. The NT’s first ever all Asian cast were fantastically strong, especially Shane Zaza in the (sort of) lead role. This one is still playing so if you haven't got tickets yet then, really, what are you waiting for?

Medea (National Theatre) 
Bleak but brilliant would be my three word review for the NT’s new adaptation of this Greek classic. Included so high on this list thanks to an absolutely stonking performance from Helen McCrory in the title role - such an underrated actress - this one was a really hard watch, but totally worth sticking with. Also without doubt the best use of music this year thanks to an electro tinged soundtrack from Goldfrapp.

My Night With Reg (Donmar Warehouse)
If Medea was all about one standout performance, then My Night With Reg was a masterclass in ensemble acting. Very funny, very poignant and very effectively staged, it was the acting from the small but perfectly formed cast that really made it something special. Also some of the best stage nudity of 2014 - looking at you Julian Ovenden. This production is transferring to the West End so no excuse not to check it out.

Great Britain (National Theatre)
Much hype and secrecy surrounded this savagely funny satire, which opened without previews just a few days after lawyers had finished checking the script in the wake of the phone hacking trial verdict. I'm always suspicious of anything that attracts hype, but this show certainly lived up to it. Very, very funny - if slightly preachy in the final third - and full of excellent performances, especially from Aaron Neil as the hapless Police Commissioner, I enjoyed this much more than I was honestly expecting to. Another one that has had a West End transfer and definitely well worth a watch.

The James Plays (National Theatre) 
Yes I am counting three plays in one. Definitely cheating. In this independence referendum year, the James Plays definitely felt like a proper theatrical event. Fantastically well written and acted throughout, it was the first two - the less outwardly political - that I found the most interesting, both in content and tone. That said, the third was definitely lifted by a fantastic star turn from Sofie Grabol. And some more great if completely gratuitous nudity, which always helps.

A Small Family Business (National Theatre) 
My first brush with Alan Ayckbourn was definitely a happy one. A very funny comedy with a pleasing amount of slapstick, there was a dark undercurrent to this that made it much more interesting. Another fantastic central performance too, this time from Nigel Lindsay. Also worth mentioning the brilliant set which saw the NT build a scale - largely working - model of a house on the huge Olivier stage.

King Lear (National Theatre) 
Another first for me, I didn’t know King Lear at all well before seeing this production. Not sure I'm a fan of the play, but I was certainly a fan of the phenomenal central performance (isn't that what Lear is all about, basically?) from the great Simon Russell Beale. If I never see Lear again I won't exactly be devastated, but I will be really glad that the Lear I saw was SRB.

Stephen Ward (West End) 
Yes I am taking the piss a bit here, but this was without question one of the most fun nights at the theatre I had this year. Utterly terrible in every way, this turd of a show was the embodiment of the phrase ‘so bad it’s good’. And given the amount of time I've spent laughing at its expense since seeing it, it seemed rude not to include it on this list.

Review: Stephen Ward

"Car crash (noun, informal): a chaotic or disastrous situation that holds a ghoulish fascination for observers." 

It's rarely a good sign when you walk into a theatre to be told that you're getting a free upgrade on your seats. It's an even less good sign when you're told that everyone sitting in the same tier of the audience is getting a similar upgrade. Even on a school night in the midst of this Game of Thrones style perma-winter, it's not encouraging that any West End show is leaving a whole tier of seats empty.

So it was, then, that we had excellent seats from which to enjoy Andrew Lloyd Weber's new musical Stephen Ward, the story of the society osteopath who was embroiled in, and ultimately destroyed by, the Profumo Affair in the 1960s. It was Ward who 'discovered' Christine Keeler and introduced her to both Minister for War John Profumo and Russian naval attache Yevgeny Ivanov. The show tells the story of how Ward was (allegedly) scapegoated in the ensuing scandal and ultimately took his own life to avoid the disgrace of being convicted and jailed for, essentially, pimping.

It's an interesting story, based on genuine (if contested) historical incidents, and a characteristically odd choice for a musical from a man whose previous work includes shows about cats and trains. And of course a cracking political musical in Evita.  

It's also the worst musical I have ever seen. 

But here's the thing - and here's why I think you should definitely get tickets to see this show before it closes (presumably quite soon) - it's so bad, so mind bendingly awful, that it makes for a very entertaining night at the theatre. 

It's unintentionally hilarious. 

It is the definition of car crash viewing: you want to stop watching, but you just can't.

Where to start on what's wrong with it? Well it's a musical so let's start with the songs. I suppose the first thing to note is how completely unmemorable they are. With one extraordinarily annoying exception (of which more later) I can't remember even a few bars of any of the music. I know that I reached the very certain conclusion that one of the songs in Act 1 - This Side of the Sky - is the worst song ALW has ever written but I can't now tell you why. 

I can make an educated guess, though, as the major problem with the songs in this show is the lyrics. When a show opens - opens - with the lyric "Stephen Ward your friendly osteopath / I can fix your lower back for you" you know you're in for a long night! And that's probably one of the better lines in this clunker of a show, to be fair.  

Not that the music or lyrics really matter, frankly, because most of the cast of this show can't sing. Harsh as this sounds, it's true. If you like shouting to (or should that be 'at'?) music, then this is the show for you! It's genuinely baffling to me that in a West End musical as high profile as this one that the cast is so poor. The most egregious offender on this front is Charlotte Spencer as Keeler who hit maybe three lines all night that didn't make me want to rip off my own ears and throw them at her. Almost all of the male cast spend most of their night shouting vague approximations of notes over music. I rather suspect that somewhere along the line in rehearsal they've been told to make their performances 'emotional' or 'raw' or something. Well it's not working guys. You sound ridiculous. 

Next on my list the characterisation which, for all but the lead characters, is just god awful. They aren't so much characters as caricatures, especially in Act 2. There's a scene where the nasty Home Secretary, with his Home Secretary voice, is discussing Ward with the nasty Police Commissioner, with his Police Commissioner voice, and the nasty guy from MI5, with his MI5 voice, that was so awful I genuinely don't know whether it was supposed to be a comedy sketch or a serious scene. The nasty policemen who put pressure on Ward's friends to compromise him appeared to be doing bad impressions of Inspector Grim from The Thin Blue Line (remember that? I loved that show!). Then there's the trial scene (with nasty Judge, with his Judge voice, and nasty lawyer, with his lawyer voice) which is so over the top, and so shouty, that I almost fell out of my chair laughing. I don't think this is the intended response to be honest.

The staging is utter pants too. For some reason, Lloyd Weber has returned to projecting backdrops onto a basically empty stage (what sets and props there are look to have been made by school children) which didn't really work in The Woman In White a few years back. Except this time the projections are on moving surfaces - curtains - which means that you can never really see what's being projected. It's a bizarre choice. 

Finally, there's the attempts at being 'edgy'. There's some utterly gratuitous and boring nudity and swearing throughout but special mention has to go to the 'orgy scene'. A lot has been made of this in the press reviews and I was kind of looking forward to finding out what an ALW orgy was going to look and sound like. The answer, to throw in my own gratuitous swear, is fucking terrifying. I don't think I've seen anything less sexy and more awkward in my entire life! There's some people in leather, some dodgy choreography which I think was supposed to look like people having sex (it didn't) and lots of men in baggy white underwear for some reason. It's about as sexy as Mr Blobby porn. (Which I really hope is a thing that doesn't exist.) This is accompanied by the only song from the show I can actually remember, the excruciatingly catchy You've Never Had It So Good. This is a song of subtlety and depth about upper class hedonism in the 1960s as evidenced by its chorus lyric "You've never had it so good / You've never had it so often". You see what they've done there, right? RIGHT? RIGHT?!?!

In the interests of balance, it seems fair to point out that Alexander Hanson's central performance as Stephen Ward is actually quite good. He has a decent voice and captures the character's loucheness and enigmatic charisma well. It's a shame he's not given a really meaty song to get stuck into but he does the best he can with the material available to him. I think it's his quality that ensures the show remains so bad it's good rather than just so bad it's bad. There's also a good performance from Joanna Riding as Valerie Hobson (Profumo's wife) who can actually sing (hurrah!) and gets a decent - if unmemorable and unnecessary in plot terms - solo to prove it. It's a shame she doesn't have a bigger role. And, if the point of this show is to make us question the official accounts of Profumo, then it has piqued my curiosity sufficiently to read up on it at some point. 

Overall, this show is a complete car crash, an utter mess. It's a hot mess though and I really urge you to see it if you want to have a bit of a giggle. Oddly enough you can get some decent deals on tickets...