NEW PLAYS
Chimerica – Lucy Kirkwood’s play takes an historical starting point for a very contemporary debate on an epic scale at the Almeida
Jumpers for Goalposts – Tom Wells’ warm-hearted play had me laughing and crying simultaneously for the first time ever – Paines Plough at Watford Palace and the Bush Theatre
Handbagged – with HMQ and just one PM, Moira Buffini’s 2010 playlet expanded to bring more depth and more laughs than The Audience (Tricycle Theatre)
Gutted – Rikki Beale-Blair’s ambitious, brave, sprawling, epic, passionate family saga at the people’s theatre, Stratford East
Di & Viv & Rose – Amelia Bullimore’s delightful exploration of human friendship at Hampstead Theatre
Honourable mentions to the Young Vic’s Season in the Congo and NTS’ Let the Right One In at the Royal Court
SHAKESPEARE
2013 will go down as the year when some of our finest young actors took to the boards and made Shakespeare exciting, seriously cool and the hottest ticket in town. Tom Hiddleston’s Coriolanus at the Donmar and James McAvoy’s Macbeth for Jamie Lloyd Productions were both raw, visceral, physical & thrilling interpretations. The dream team of Adrian Lester and Rory Kinnear provided psychological depth in a very contemporary Othello at the NT. Jude Law and David Tennant as King’s Henry V for Michael Grandage Company and the RSC’s Richard II led more elegant, traditional but lucid interpretations. They all enhanced the theatrical year and I feel privileged to have seen them.
OTHER REVIVALS
Mies Julie – Strindberg in South Africa, tense and riveting, brilliantly acted (Riverside)
Edward II – a superb contemporary staging which illuminated this 400-year-old Marlowe play at the NT
Rutherford & Son – Northern Broadsides in an underated 100-year-old northern play visiting Kingston
Amen Corner – The NT director designate’s very musical staging of this 1950’s Black American play
The Pride – speedy revival but justified and timely, and one of many highlights of the Jamie Lloyd season
London Wall & Laburnam Grove – not one, but two early 20th century plays that came alive at the tiny Finborough Theatre
Honorable mentions for To Kill A Mockingbird at the Open Air, Beautiful Thing at the Arts, Fences in the West End, Purple Heart – early Bruce (Clybourne Park) Norris – at the Gate and The EL Train at Hoxton Hall, where the Eugene O’Neill experience included the venue.
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