Recalling the year past, which is de rigueur for those of us who have spent too many nights in darkened rooms, I’m struck again by the richness and talent of so many shows I’ve seen, particularly in the smaller and Off-West End and Fringe venues.
Year in Review: Helen McWilliams’ top 25 performers of 2016
I’ve given some thought to the various actors and actresses on stage and screen who have ‘made’ 2016 for me, and these choices are from my heart and my head.
Year in Review: Helen McWilliams’ top 5 touring shows of 2016
Touring productions are the vast majority of shows that I go along to review, so whittling down a shortlist of the top ones from 2016 is no mean feat. The task has been eased somewhat as a few of my personal idols have been treading the boards this year and their appearances were highlights in themselves.
Year in Review: Helen McWilliams’ top 5 West End shows of 2016
My year would not be complete without a spot of Masquerade and Chiquitita! Here’s the best of what I’ve been watching in the West End this year.
Year in Review: Helen McWilliams’ Top 5 Off-West End productions of 2016
2016 has been the year that Break A Leg has been out and about seeing what London’s Off-West End productions and theatres have to offer. I have adored going to see new spaces, places and faces – it’s been aces! So, without further ado… here are my top five choices from among the many I have had the pleasure of reviewing.
Matthew Bourne’s THE RED SHOES – Sadler’s Wells & touring
Well, he’s done it again. Matthew Bourne’s The Red Shoes, based on the iconic movie by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger is a triumph, whichever way you look at it. Scenic-wise, music wise and not least as a gripping story, from first to last you know you are in the hands of someone who loves and has complete mastery over the technical and dramatic qualities of theatre.
A CHRISTMAS CAROL – Vaults Theatre
Turning Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol into a mock radio recording is, in a sense, returning Dickens to his roots. Dickens public readings of his work are legendary. So here we are, in the Vault Theatre under the thundering trains of Waterloo, with the Fitzrovia Radio Hour, who, formed eight years ago have made staging radio plays their speciality.
HAMLET – Trafalgar Studios
Kelly Hunter’s Hamlet is one that hammers on the eyelids. Ferocious and deeply moving, it harbours an incendiary central performance from Mark Arends that at times makes you fear for his life, so emotionally tethered is it to its character’s nerve endings.
ONCE IN A LIFETIME – Young Vic Theatre
With its kooky look at the characters drawn to California’s movie gold rush, Once in a Lifetime took a comic swipe at the coincidental, accidental happenings that turned opportunists into cinematic frontiersmen and women. It’s a comedy made for big performances, satire writ large to the point of caricature.
THIS HOUSE – West End
This House has taken on a life of its own since its first appearance at the National Theatre in 2012 in the Cottesloe Theatre. Transferred to the Olivier, then revived this year at Chichester, it now sits grandly in the West End, complete with on-stage seating, rock band, glowered over by the face of Big Ben.
DR ANGELUS – Finborough Theatre
What a titan was James Bridie aka Osborne Henry Mavor, doctor and writer, co-founder of Glasgow Citz and prime mover in the launch of the Edinburgh Festival as well as a driving force in the establishment of the Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.
BURIED CHILD – West End
“We can’t not believe in something – we just end up dying if we stop. Just end up dead.” America in the grip of a malaise, America tearing itself apart and here, right in the middle of the 1970s, Shepard’s resonant metaphor speaks directly to post presidential Trump-land USA 2016.
BURIED CHILD – West End
“We can’t not believe in something – we just end up dying if we stop. Just end up dead.” America in the grip of a malaise, America tearing itself apart and here, right in the middle of the 1970s, Shepard’s resonant metaphor speaks directly to post presidential Trump-land USA 2016.
THE CHILDREN – Royal Court Theatre
A great wave has engulfed the coast with consequent damage to the nearby nuclear power plant. Within this framework, Kirkwood builds a wonderfully delicate portrait of love, marriage and tensions boiling
THE TEMPEST – Donmar at King’s Cross
None of the plays would have travelled in quite the same way (to Broadway and back) had it not been for Harriet Walter sticking her colours to the mast from Day One, leading the company as Brutus, Henry IV and now Prospero.
SWAN LAKE/Loch na hEala – Sadler’s Wells & touring
Anybody going to see Michael Keegan-Dolan’s Swan Lake expecting business as usual is going to be in for a big surprise. But then, few would go unprepared. Keegan-Dolan has been around for a while, one of the wunderkinds of Irish dance-theatre.
THE SEWING GROUP – Royal Court Theatre
E V Crowe has been steadily building a reputation as a writer of taut, stringent control since her debut, Kin (2010) followed by the positively garrulous (by her standards) but impressive Hero (2012) with Daniel Mays. Last year, Brenda, a study in mystery and abuse, premiered at the High Tide festival and certainly took no prisoners. Nor does her latest, The Sewing Group.
OIL – Almeida Theatre
So the ‘new world order’ is upon us but maybe not quite as many of us might have expected or hoped for. And if the new order of things continues as recently indicated, Ella Hickson’s vision will surely turn out to be bleakly prophetic. Oil is one of the most remarkable pieces of theatre new writing I’ve seen this year, or maybe even for some years.
OIL – Almeida Theatre
So the ‘new world order’ is upon us but maybe not quite as many of us might have expected or hoped for. And if the new order of things continues as recently indicated, Ella Hickson’s vision will surely turn out to be bleakly prophetic. Oil is one of the most remarkable pieces of theatre new writing I’ve seen this year, or maybe even for some years.
Strindberg’s Women – Jermyn Street Theatre
August Strindberg is best known for the violence of his views on sexual politics. Miss Julie and Dance of Death are nothing if not agonised and agonising examinations of the hopeless wish to find equanimity in human relations between men and women.
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