Fortunately, it became clear early on that 2023 was going to be a particularly strong year for musicals, so may I present to you my not-at-all half-hearted chapter theme of "Something Something Music" in all its glory:
OVERTURE
Yep, we once again start with shows hoping for a big opening. Oh and hey look, the first piece of new writing is also one I'm giving a brand new award to! Granted, not one The Art of Illusion is likely to have wanted, but here we are.
THE DIRTY BIRDIE AWARD 2023 FOR NARRATIVE CHEATING
SPONSORED BY ANNIE WILKES:
The frozen sperm in The Art of Illusion at Hampstead Theatre Downstairs
The Spring always seems to bring a lot of contenders for my Top Ten and 2023 was no exception - a strong couple of weeks saw a run including Romeo and Julie, Trouble in Butetown and Brilliant Jerks. I didn't go to see Oppenheimer at the cinema but its success might be one reason for two different plays about the other team of nuclear scientists to crop up in London theatres. And when I say "different," I mean based on the same incredibly specific premise, but getting very different reactions from me,
PARTIALLY OBSTRUCTED AWARD 2023 FOR BEST PLAY ABOUT A
TEAM OF GERMAN NUCLEAR PHYSICISTS CAPTURED TOWARDS
THE END OF WORLD WAR II AND KEPT UNDER HOUSE ARREST IN
A REMOTE ENGLISH MANSION, BASED DIRECTLY ON TRANSCRIPTS
OF THEIR ACTUAL SECRETLY-RECORDED CONVERSATIONS:
Farm Hall at Jermyn Street Theatre
In 2022, audiences at the Harold Pinter Theatre were asked to put stickers over their phone cameras so that no pictures leaked of David Tennant wearing clothes (it was... the kind of clothes that caused the issue.) In 2023, the stickers were out in force again because James Norton wasn't wearing any. This took up a lot of column inches (fnar,) as did A Little Life for numerous other controversies which I tried to deal with in my review at the time. And yet nobody mentioned the elephant in the room (fnar,) which is that if you stick a working kitchen on stage you're asking for trouble. Just ask Carey Mulligan.
THE CAREY MULLIGAN MEMORIAL AWARD 2023 FOR BEING
UPSTAGED BY PASTA CHEESE CRUDITÉS:
James Norton in A Little Life at the Harold Pinter Theatre
Less focused on naked men and snacks, but appealing to me on a whole different level by going full-on theatre nerd, Jack Thorne went behind the scenes in a famous rehearsal, of Hamlet just to make it even more tailored to what I know, and scored a hit both with me and with the public at large with The Motive and the Cue.
I was less bothered about Thorne's When Winston Went to War With the Wireless, which sadly became most memorable as the last time I saw the late Haydn Gwynne on stage - at least she got to add another Prime Minister to her roster, and not one of the ones you might expect.
In the world of established National Treasures, Lenny Henry performed his playwrighting debut August In England, while in the world of future ones Hope Has A Happy Meal featured Nima Taleghani, mere moments before half my Twitter feed decided they wanted to bang him as a scary teacher in Heartstopper. Star power saw a rare return to the stage for Jonny Lee Miller in the twisty A Mirror, before the surprisingly ubiquitous Ian McKellen alongside Roger Allam as Frank and Percy.
Autumn saw a real mix of hits and misses, with the hits including It's Headed Straight Towards Us, untitled f*ck m*ss s**gon play, What It Means, The White Factory and Clyde's.
New writer Marcelo Dos Santos made a splashy start with two shows on in London - for me Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen far outshone the bigger Backstairs Billy. I, Malvolio isn't new but it's new to me, and is certainly something of a unique creature. Infinite Life was low-key great, Pandemonium great in parts, but any show premiering in December would struggle to get buzz over this year's big juggernaut: Stranger Things came to town, and while I personally thought it tried to do way too much and was hampered by that, I can't see The First Shadow going anywhere soon. And while there were a number of visuals that caught the eye, there's one that'll be sticking with me:
THE MATT SMITH PISSING HIMSELF AWARD 2023
FOR ASTONISHING COUP DE THÉÂTRETM:
Joint winner #1
The slow-motion fall in Stranger Things: The First Shadow at the Phoenix Theatre
VARIATIONS ON A THEME
Adaptations and revivals now, with the year starting strong at the Donmar with Watch on the Rhine, a play that did that quietly satisfying thing: Looking like it was going to follow a familiar path only to go in a completely different direction. I got the chance to catch a few plays considered to be modern classics that I hadn't seen before - but I wasn't entirely sold on Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons or Further than the Furthest Thing. Leaves of Glass got added to my Philip Ridley collection and was powerful, if not really a candidate for my favourite Ridley play. The new Southwark Playhouse main house opened with The Walworth Farce, a good showcase for the venue but not Emmet Byrne's best look.
PARTIALLY OBSTRUCTED AWARD 2023 FOR
UNNECESSARY COMMITMENT TO METHOD ACTING:
Emmet Byrne giving himself male pattern baldness
in The Walworth Farce at Southwark Playhouse Elephant
I might have liked Simon Stone's Phaedra more if it had just ditched any pretence of actually being related to Euripides, Seneca and Racine's plays, while I was a much bigger fan of Sophie Okonedo's faithful but fresh look at Medea. Moving gradually through the centuries, Cheek by Jowl added Spanish to their roster of international companies with Life is a Dream (La Vida es Sueño,) I finally got to see Quality Street again although I didn't think it needed Northern Broadsides' new bells and whistles, and in difficult financial times it seems Noël Coward is such good box office that no sooner had the Donmar's darker take on Private Lives closed, than a more traditional one opened a few streets away (but one in a year was enough for me.) The Lyric Hammersmith catered to late-20th century classics straight out of my drama course, with great productions of The Good Person of Szechwan and Accidental Death of an Anarchist.
I thought Jamie Lloyd took the description of The Effect as a "clinical romance" a bit too literally, so I was left slightly cold by an otherwise well-received revival. On the other hand I hadn't seen The Pillowman before, so while I could understand the consensus that Lily Allen was nowhere near experienced enough an actress to lead it, coming to a story that audaciously dark fresh meant it was still one of the most memorable evenings of the year.
PARTIALLY OBSTRUCTED AWARD 2023 FOR NIGHTMARE FUEL:
The title story in The Pillowman at the Duke of York's Theatre
Later in the year there were some interesting reimaginings of classics, striking the balance between offering something fresh and keeping the strengths of the original: Pygmalion, She Stoops to Conquer and The House of Bernarda Alba were good; the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse's first foray into Ibsen for Ghosts was downright great.
HEY NONNY NONNY
And a Swanamaker show takes us neatly into Shakespeare, where one or two plays seem to dominate every year. For 2023 one comedy and one tragedy shared my most-seen spot, with As You Like It getting an autumnal take at @sohoplace, a nostalgic one at the RST, and the Globe really running with the story's gender-bending element. Actually Macbeth could easily have beaten it outright if I'd gone to every production offered, but between choosing to skip some, and others getting skipped for me thanks to train strikes, it also comes in at three, very different productions: The Globe's look at masculine forces causing chaos, the Donmar's bleak, audio-driven take, and The Faction's semi-successful reinvention of it as a play for two actors. Well, not always just two: Productions always have a dilemma around Banquo's ghost - should he be visible to the audience or not? Turns out there's a third option.
THE PIPPIN MEMORIAL AWARD 2023 FOR ENDEARING WHATTHEFUCKERY:
The human-sized teddy bear in Macbeth / Partners of Greatness at Wilton's Music Hall
A less successful reinvention came from good intentions: A rewrite of Hamlet to focus on young, inexperienced actors, Lazarus didn't have the budget to train them, or a script that made much sense once the adults were edited out. But a big budget doesn't always help either, especially when the ego it's attached to is even bigger, and Kenneth Branagh's particular magic trick involved cutting nearly half of King Lear and still making it interminable.
PARTIALLY OBSTRUCTED AWARD 2023 FOR WORST SHAKESPEARE PRODUCTION:
King Lear at Wyndham's Theatre
In fact despite the 4th centenary of the First Folio, this hasn't felt like a classic Shakespeare year. Both the RSC and the Globe marked the anniversary by programming plays that would have been lost if they hadn't been included, and Michelle Terry's run at the latter continued to make Bankside the destination for Shakespearean highlights: I'm not a lover of The Winter's Tale but having it straddle both indoor and outdoor venues made for a unique experience, and if a bloodless Titus Andronicus sounds like heresy well, they even made that work. But, obviously, blood again next time please and thank you.
But once again A Midsummer Night's Dream proves to have endless reinventions up its sleeve, and Elle While provided all the Globe staples: A casually genderqueer production, a fresh take on Bottom, a genuinely sinister Puck from Terry herself and, of course, something perfectly reasonable for the papers to treat as if it was the end of days (this year's special: A trigger warning for ableist language.) I'll even forgive While for the interview where she said that people don't realise there's a line about Theseus wooing Hippolyta with his sword and wouldn't it be interesting to explore the darkness of YES, YES WE KNOW, at least a third of all productions I've seen over the last 30 years have been entirely defined by that line, at least the end result this time felt different.
PARTIALLY OBSTRUCTED AWARD 2023 FOR BEST SHAKESPEARE PRODUCTION:
A Midsummer Night's Dream at Shakespeare's Globe
ENTR'ACTE
Yeah sorry, this probably is only the halfway point at best, and it's going to be a busy one: I did say it had been a big year for musicals. So big, in fact, that I'm going to fudge my usual rules slightly in what qualifies for my awards this year: Though still directed by Jethro Compton, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was a rewritten version and a reconceived new production, which would normally mean I'd consider it for my Top Ten. But in a crowded field I decided to leave out a show I'd already made Musical of the Year in 2019 - in any other year it would probably have won it again.
Things built gradually over the first couple of months, with Mandela never really diversifying from big anthems, Telly Leung having no right to still look that twinky in his forties in Allegiance, a strong return for a reworked and improved Sylvia, and the weird if not-quite-wonderful The Great British Bake Off Musical. But it was Standing at the Sky's Edge which really kicked things off as a great year for new musicals, with an incredibly powerful, and perhaps unlikely, ode to brutalism. The Almeida got another strong Duncan Sheik musical in The Secret Life of Bees, and I finally saw the cult hit Eugenius!, where Vanessa was happily laughing at how over-the-top the superhero's muscle suit was, before realising that's Dominic Anderson's actual body.
Equal parts excellent and traumatising, Next to Normal made its belated UK debut, while The Little Big Things became this year's show that everyone else seemed to go wild for, but which left me slightly cold. The last big musical launch of the year was the good but overlong adaptation of The Witches at the National, but once again it was that venue's next artistic director who came up trumps for me, as her final Kiln season included the belting, funny and effortlessly charming Two Strangers (Carry A Cake Across New York.)
And it wasn't just new musicals stealing the show as there were strong revivals, with the Bridge finding a long-running hit in a promenade-but-definitely-not-immersive Guys & Dolls, but as far as old-fashioned fun goes for me the crown has to go to Crazy For You. Stretching the definition of a musical to its limit there was a new, schlongless Song From Far Away, and Groundhog Day came back. Well, of course it did. The Open Air Theatre opened its season with a strong musical offering in Once On This Island, but it was Timothy Sheader's final production running the venue that was the biggest triumph, with a heartfelt and pertinent La Cage Aux Folles.
You might have noticed Stranger Things: The First Shadow had to share an award earlier, so here's the show it's sharing it with: Jamie Lloyd's Sunset Blvd is sold on the star power of Nicole Shitsinger, but there's only one thing the people coming out of the show are talking about. (To what extent it's real or clever editing doesn't really matter, the end result is equally impressive.)
THE MATT SMITH PISSING HIMSELF AWARD 2023
FOR ASTONISHING COUP DE THÉÂTRETM:
Joint winner #2
Tom Francis performing the title song while walking around the entire theatre
and surrounding streets in Sunset Blvd at the Savoy Theatre
But as for the overall best musical, it has to go to the one that's been bothering my Spotify playlists since March:
PARTIALLY OBSTRUCTED AWARD 2023 FOR BEST MUSICAL:
Standing at the Sky's Edge at the National Theatre's Olivier
LEITMOTIF
Onto shows connected in some tenuous way, in an attempt to make this something other than a list in chronological order, and pure silly comedy was represented by the stage adaptation of one of my favourite radio sitcoms, Bleak Expectations, transferring to the West End; sadly a Radio 4 fanbase wasn't quite big enough to let it conclude its full run, even with a roster of celebrity guest narrators. The Time Machine was a comedy of two halves - the second one fortunately being the one that worked. And while this one could have fit into the Musicals category, I think we all know Police Cops: The Musical belongs firmly with the full-on, insane comedies. I saw it three times in a month and have already booked twice for its 2024 return.
Tom Roe was a factor in its success for... various reasons
Every year has its recurring themes reflecting what's going on in the world outside the theatre, and while the media has continued to throw a fit about gender and sexuality, the stage has for the most part stayed more mature about it, including when it's being incredibly silly, like in The Boys Are Kissing. And given all the times I've been roped into audience participation over the years, it was probably time one of my regular theatre companions got picked on instead.
PARTIALLY OBSTRUCTED AWARD 2023 FOR AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION:
Ian having to comfort a depressed Cherub who sat on him during
The Boys Are Kissing at Theatre 503
Sound of the Underground certainly had its own distinct voice in its call for some understanding that not all drag is necessarily as defined by RuPaul, and while not all the queer stories being told had fairytale endings, Linck & Mülhahn didn't let that stop it from being every bit as positive and triumphant, a genuine highlight in an otherwise mostly best-forgotten year for Hampstead Theatre.
Apparently one of the big buzzwords in commisioning plays at the moment is intersectionality - stories that offer the unique perspective of people belonging to more than one underrepresented minority group. It was something the hilariously smutty US import A Strange Loop had a lot of metatextual fun with, although despite spelling it out you could easily have come out of it thinking intersectionality meant something completely different.
THE SALTBURN MEMORIAL AWARD 2023 FOR MOST REFERENCES TO CUM:
A Strange Loop at the Barbican Theatre
The intersection of being black and queer was also a theme in BLACK SUPERHERO, while for a time the Park Theatre specialised in stories of queer disabled men, with Animal in the main house and Paper Cut in the studio.
A couple of modern gay classics were also revived, with the 30th anniversary production both reinventing Beautiful Thing and providing everything that's so beloved in Jonathan Harvey's play.
Fucking Men was also revived, and also gave the audience what they were there for.
For me, the queer theatre event of the year was one that always seemed like it would make more of a splash than it did, and while I can make fun of shows like Fucking Men for playing to the lowest common denominator (it's me, I'm the lowest common denominator,) there's something to be said for using the marketing tools that you've got. Brokeback Mountain had a title familiar from the popular film adaptation, a couple of good-looking Hollywood actors (one fairly well-known, one up-and-coming,) a soundtrack of great new songs, and frankly was just all-round excellent - another show I made a repeat visit to because I couldn't bear to have it close without me seeing it again.
PARTIALLY OBSTRUCTED AWARD 2023 FOR THEATRICAL EVENT OF THE YEAR:
Brokeback Mountain at @sohoplace Theatre
But it also had publicity images that seemed determined to avoid the numerous scenes where the aforementioned Hollywood actors rolled around in bed together naked. The first time I went the show was surprisingly empty. The second time I went it was packed. Yes, between the two visits the production had released some new publicity images. Get the people in however you can guys, the show's good enough that they'll remember it for other reasons.
PARTIALLY OBSTRUCTED AWARD 2023
FOR MOST ARTISTICALLY-JUSTIFIED PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL:
The second set of production photos for Brokeback Mountain at @sohoplace Theatre
Well OK, most of them will remember it for other reasons.
PARTIALLY OBSTRUCTED AWARD 2023 FOR BEST AUDIENCE REACTION:
The woman next to me who audibly grunted when Lucas Hedges got his arse out
in Brokeback Mountain at @sohoplace Theatre
In theatrical themes that weren't necessarily All About The Gays, real-life football stories came to the stage. And I say they're not All About The Gays, but you'd be hard-pushed to find anything much camper than Vardy v Rooney: The Wagatha Christie Trial. A bigger critical success but, as you might expect from James Graham and Rupert Goold, every bit as entertaining, the story of Gareth Southgate reinventing the England men's squad came to the National, before Dear England become the first non-musical play to transfer to the vast Prince Edward Theatre in the best part of a century.
Regular readers of this blog may both remember I've been calling for Indhu Rubasingham to become the next Artistic Director of the National Theatre for years. My real-life theatre companions certainly remember, as they were braced for my predictable smugness when it was announced a few weeks ago that it's actually going to happen. My reasons were selfish in fairness - she just has a great track record of both directing and programming shows I personally enjoy. True to form, her final year in charge of the Kiln included great choices like Retrograde, Es & Flo, Modest, and Mlima's Tale. I hadn't planned on seeing the latter but the casting changed my mind, and however downbeat it was it proved the right decision. For artistic quality reasons as well, but also the fairly obvious. Yes, it sounds nice to get eye-contact from Ira Mandela Siobhan, but that means he'll have absolutely known I was previously staring at his chest. There's really nowhere else this one could have gone, is there?
PARTIALLY OBSTRUCTED AWARD 2023 FOR BEST NIPPLES:
Ira Mandela Siobhan in Mlima's Tale at the Kiln Theatre
Look, he can't complain about being objectified, from another trip to Kilburn on a hot day I can attest to the fact that he's happy to get the boys out in Sainsbury's, so he knows what he's doing. Speaking of objectification, of course I'm not done, and as well as making a late entry as a life-affirming show to end the year on, The Fair Maid of the West also seemed to tap into my Netflix viewing habits by closing the story with a Sexy SpaniardTM:
THE CAPTAIN TIGHTPANTS AWARD 2023:
Marc Giro in The Fair Maid of the West at the Swan Theatre
Anyway, isn't it terrible how people were obsessed with looking at naked James Norton in A Little Life? So shallow. I can assure you I was looking elsewhere.
THE SCHLONG FROM FAR AWAY AWARD 2023:
Luke Thompson in A Little Life at the Harold Pinter Theatre
Finally, and to get back to the Art, dear, monologues were surprisingly big West End business - although big names help, with Eddie Izzard telling the tale of Great Expectations, Sheridan Smith as Shirley Valentine and Andrew Scott as all the characters in Vanya packing out the Garrick and Duke of York's respectively. As for picking a favourite, I'm going to have to go for the one that did the most with the least, making the whole dramatis personae distinctive with subtle physical changes.
PARTIALLY OBSTRUCTED AWARD 2023 FOR BEST SOLO PERFORMANCE:
Andrew Scott in Vanya at the Duke of York's Theatre
DISSONANCE
Well it can't all be good news, and following on from the recurring themes of the year I'm not sure if this actually was one, or if I only realised this year how much I hate it: Yoda impressions now make me furious. They're used as an incredibly lazy way of introducing that a character is A Character, they're used like that ubiquitously, and they don't even require the actor to be particularly good at it, just say the words in the wrong order. Even something as fun as Eugenius! struggled to get me back after that, but in the case of Then, Now & Next it proved a sign that the whole show wasn't quite going to hold together, and as for the... well I want to say unintentionally nightmarish Mrs Doubtfire...
PARTIALLY OBSTRUCTED AWARD 2023 FOR WORST MUSICAL:
Mrs Doubtfire at the Shaftesbury Theatre
Yes, that's despite the existence of Berlusconi, arguably the worst thing to happen to Silvio Berlusconi this year. If you're ever unsure what the book writer of a musical does, just look at this show, which dispensed with one and just strung together elements relating to the late Italian PM's life with no semblance of order.
Elsewhere, could Kathryn Hunter have saved Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead? She was off sick when I saw it so we'll never know.
FRAM OF THE YEAR FOR MOST AGGRESSIVE COMMITMENT
TO CAUSING AUDIENCE TEDIUM:
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead at the Barbican Theatre
Jules and Jim was simply too French to function, Stumped discovered the hard way that having a good premise isn't enough if you don't know what to do with it, Operation Epsilon's premise was basically "what if Farm Hall, but not as good?" and The Crown Jewels was just a bit embarrassing for all concerned, including the audience. A good production and great cast just confirmed that God of Carnage isn't a play that does anything for me, while Hampstead's series of duds included anthropology and To Have and to Hold. The set was the best thing about Portia Coughlan, doing a Lady Di impression with her head welded to her shoulder is funny for a quick gag but doesn't sustain a whole play like The Interview (cf the final season of The Crown,) and Lizzie seemed to find an audience for reasons that entirely escape me. Mates in Chelsea, on the other hand, has been so roundly slated it feels like kicking someone when they're down to point out that without George Fouracres looking suspiciously like he was ad-libbing his way through it, it would have been an entirely painful experience.
Finally, not really belonging with the worst of the worst, but both The Nag's Head and The Enfield Haunting pissed me off by promising spookiness and then making no effort whatsoever to deliver it.
But what does belong with the worst of the worst? Well since you ask...
THE SHIT LIST 2023:NICK'S BOTTOM 5 SHOWS OF THE YEAR
5 - Berlusconi at Southwark Playhouse Elephant
4 - Lizzie at Southwark Playhouse Elephant
3 - Portia Coughlan at the Almeida
2 - Mrs Doubtfire at the Shaftesbury Theatre
SirKenBran came up with a marvellous way of giving young actors a leg up into the West End, as long as they all went to the same drama school as he did: He cast them in his definitely-not-a-vanity-project, self-directed King Lear, then cut most of their lines and made them bellow any that were left in the style of a deranged Victorian impresario, or a SirKenBran. Then he stood in the middle, turned all the lights on himself and did some bellowing of his own.
STINKER OF THE YEAR 2023:
King Lear at Wyndham's Theatre
Moving swiftly on to happier times and better shows, and the good news is that once again this was a harder list to narrow down than the duds.
THE HIT LIST 2023:NICK'S TOP TEN SHOWS OF THE YEAR
10 - The Boys Are Kissing at Theatre 503
9 - Clyde's at the Donmar Warehouse
8 - The Motive and the Cue at the National Theatre's Lyttelton
7 - Linck & Mülhahn at Hampstead Theatre
6 - Farm Hall at Jermyn Street Theatre
5 - Ghosts at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
4 - Two Strangers (Carry A Cake Across New York) at the Kiln Theatre
3 - Standing at the Sky's Edge at the National Theatre's Olivier
2 - Brokeback Mountain at @sohoplace Theatre
For the last two years, fairly serious shows at the Dorfman have taken the top spot. Can the National Theatre's smallest space make it a hat-trick? Oh god no, although there were some good shows there, and some serious subjects dealt with elsewhere in my Top Ten, I think it's pretty obvious that my love of (the best kind of) wilful stupidity would win out this year. My second Ben From Off Of A1 musical of the year, the most demented 1980s spoof yet, and Tom Roe being as ridiculously hot as his facial hair is just... ridiculous, if you're not an Amerifan yet, why not?
SHOW OF THE YEAR 2023:
Police Cops: The Musical at Southwark Playhouse Borough's Large Theatre
So a Top Ten with only one revival in it, a Top Four consisting of three musicals and one play with original songs, fair to say I wouldn't have guessed at any of that coming into 2023. With no single auditorium appearing more than once, I'm going to give THEATRE OF THE YEAR 2023 to The Kiln Theatre, which has a few shows hanging around just outside the Top Ten, and seems apt for Indhu Rubasingham's final year there. We'll have to wait for 2025 to see the first of her programming for the National, so maybe in 2024 someone else can have a go at wowing me - cheers, bye for now.
Photo credit: Robert Day, Alex Brenner, Jan Versweyveld, Mark Douet, Manuel Harlan, Marc Brenner, David Jensen, Helen Murray, Johan Persson, Juan Coolio, Mark Senior, Pamela Raith, Danny Kaan, Stefan Hanegraaf, The Other Richard, Darren Bell, Ali Wright, Nick Rutter, Camilla Adams.
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