2025: Nick's Theatre Review of the Year

Middling is a bit of a harsh word to describe an entire year, isn't it? And having now written my roundup of 2025 it doesn't really feel accurate either, but it's what came to mind when I first looked over my reviews of 133 new productions. There were plenty of shows to get excited about, but unlike some years when I'm having to ruthlessly cut shows that almost made my Hit List but not quite, this year's Top Ten shows pretty much assembled themselves, with only the order I put them in to be determined. On the other hand the Bottom Five wasn't hard-fought either, so it's not like there were an inordinate amount of disasters either. I guess there were just a few too many shows in the middle, that I pretty much forgot immediately upon leaving the theatre.

Theatre review: Paranormal Activity

It's technically not a seasonal show, but you could argue my last live theatre trip of 2025 is very much a traditional one, since ghost stories have long been associated with Christmas (and there is a Christmas tree on stage as the story is set in December.) Writer Levi Holloway and director Felix Barrett bring the Paranormal Activity horror movie franchise to the stage with an original story about a recently-married couple moving into a new home, but it soon becomes apparent this isn't going to be a story about a haunted house, but a haunting they've brought to it: Jimmy (Patrick Heusinger) has accepted a high-paying job in London, in part because it's a long way from Chicago, where his wife Lou (Melissa James) experienced blackouts, sleepwalking and depression, which she attributed to a "shadow" that's followed her since a traumatic childhood event.

Theatre review: Christmas Day

For the Almeida's last show of the year the audience enters the Stalls via the side door by the dressing rooms; as we don't then encounter a dead bull bleeding crude oil onto the stage, that's setting us up for disappointment right from the off. A dead fox does eventually get dumped on the dinner table of Sam Grabiner's Christmas Day though. The title describes the date when events take place but things are a bit more complex with regard to what exactly is being celebrated, as most of the characters are Jewish and have different opinions on whether or not it's OK to fill the room with the trappings of a Christian holiday. Brother and sister Noah (Samuel Blenkin) and Tamara (Transphobia Ltd Employee Bel Powley) live in an abandoned office building as tenant guardians, along with Noah's girlfriend Maud (Callie Cooke) and various other young people.

Theatre review: Into the Woods

When Stephen Sondheim died in 2021 I thought we'd see theatres falling over each other to revive some of his greatest hits, but fair play they've largely taken their time, staging about as much of his work as usual (including his not-quite-finished final work.) Of course maybe all the falling over each other was going on behind the scenes as people fought over the rights. If the Bridge's production of Sondheim's (music and lyrics) and James Lapine's (book) Into the Woods is anything to go by, what they were waiting for was the chance to really go big, both in terms of spectacle and of recognisable performers to take on what is an almighty ensemble piece. The Baker (Jamie Parker, who I think we can all agree is the first History Boy ever to take on the role) and his wife (Katie Brayben) can't have children, which it turns out is down to a curse placed on his family.

Theatre review: Christmas Carol Goes Wrong

London's latest version of Charles Dickens' (Chickens to his friends) A Christmas Carol comes with a disclaimer that a number of Christmas Carols, from Channing to Vorderman, will not be appearing at the performance: Yes, Mischief Theatre are back revisiting their Cornley Amateur Dramatic Society alter egos for Christmas Carol Goes Wrong. A version of the story was also their first TV special, but this departs not only from that, but also from the format's usual conceit of only showing us the catastrophic production itself, but with the amateur actors' personalities coming across from the varied brand of chaos each of them brings. Here we get the characters - a couple recast, but an impressive amount of the original actors returning well into the company's second decade in the West End - appearing as themselves in a framing device.

Theatre review: The Playboy of the Western World

The Lyttelton goes festive, but instead of Christmas 2025 in London we're going to early 20th Century County Mayo and what looks like a harvest festival for Irish classic The Playboy of the Western World. Director Caitríona McLaughlin frames John Millington Synge's tragicomedy with pagan figures playing the fiddle as Christy Mahon (Éanna Hardwicke) arrives in a remote building that doubles as pub and general store for a farming community desperate, it turns out, for some excitement. Christy says he murdered his father, and has spent the last eleven days walking, hoping to escape the law. The store's owner Michael (Lorcan Cranitch) and his daughter Pegeen (Nicola Coughlan) let him stay the night, then give him the job of pot-boy so he can stay longer, and be safe as it appears news of his crime hasn't reached this part of the world.

Theatre review: The BFG

As regular readers will both know, Roald Dahl's children's fiction was never part of my childhood (I mainly knew him for Tales of the Unexpected and as Britain's second favourite comedy bigot after Alf Garnett,) so going to Stratford-upon-Avon for The RSC BFG at the RST wasn't particularly on my to-do list until it turned out Tom Wells was on writing duty. And while he doesn't give the Big Friendly Giant quite the level of double entendre filth he used to bring to the Lyric Hammersmith pantos, there's still a trademark wit - I did like a small girl wearily accepting her fate as a giant's dinner with "well, I'm eight, I've had a good innings." Sophie (Martha Bailey Vine, Elsie Laslett or Ellemie Shivers) and Kimberley (Maisy Lee, Charlotte Jones or Uma Patel) live together in an orphanage until the former is abducted by a giant.

Theatre review: The Spy Who Came In From The Cold

Back to @sohoplace, the theatre with a name so current it would like to tell you its theories about Scully's abduction, and a play full of a few conspiracies of its own: In what is apparently the first time anyone has ever adapted the work of spy novelist John le Carré for the stage, David Eldridge takes us to 1961's divided Germany for The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. Alec Leamas (Rory Keenan) runs the Berlin branch of intelligence agency The Circus, but his East Berlin opposite and hated nemesis Mundt (Gunnar Cauthery) is far too efficient at exposing and eliminating his spies. When his last and best agent is killed, Leamas retires from the agency, disillusioned and disheartened: He starts drinking more, finds it hard to hold down a job, and eventually spends some time in prison after assaulting a shopkeeper for refusing him credit.

Theatre review: The Rivals

Tom Littler's theme for Christmas shows at the Orange Tree seems to be Jazz Age relocations for classic comedies, and this year he goes back to Restoration Comedy to move Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The Rivals from 1775 to 1927. Lydia Languish (Zoe Brough) is a fan of torrid romantic novels and wouldn't consider a romance of her own that wasn't suitably anguished, so her aristocratic suitor Captain Jack Absolute (Kit Young) is wooing her in disguise as a lowly sergeant: He knows she would never be interested in him if he had her family's approval. In fact Jack's father Sir Anthony (Robert Bathurst) has been busy arranging a marriage between his son and Lydia, so when the latter finds out she determines to reject Jack Absolute in favour of the fictional Beverley, and Jack finds himself his own biggest rival.

Theatre review: Paddington

To say that Michael Bond's Paddington Bear has had a resurgence since the 2014 film would be an understatement, as would be to say a musical adaptation could be a huge risk: The slightest hint of a shameless cash-in on such a beloved character could have gone very badly. Fortunately Paddington the Musical is in very safe hands with Tom Fletcher (music and lyrics,) Jessica Swale (book) and director Luke Sheppard. When an elderly bear, Aunt Lucy (voiced by Brenda Edwards) can no longer look after her orphaned nephew, she sends him from Darkest Peru to London, where she hopes he'll find the explorer who was kind to her years before. Instead he finds Mrs Brown (Amy Ellen Richardson) and her son Jonathan (Jasper Rowse, alternating with Joseph Bramley, Leo Collon and Stevie Hare.) Against the wishes of Mr Brown (Adrian Der Gregorian) and permanently embarrassed teenager Judy (Delilah Bennett-Cardy) they invite him home.

Theatre review: A Midsummer Night's Dream (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse)

A couple of years ago Holly Race Roughan directed a Henry V in the Swanamaker that impressively reinvented the bombastic history play as a chilling tragedy, so I was willing to give her return to the venue a chance, despite it being advertised as the hoariest of all Shakespearean clichés - and the one every director who's ever tackled the play seems convinced they're the first ever to spot: The dark underside of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Co-directed by Naeem Hayat, this is the story of an Athens ruled by Michael Marcus' drunken bully Theseus, who's forcing the defeated Amazon queen to marry him; at the start, he and Hippolyta (Hedydd Dylan) are still trying to kill each other as they plan their wedding. When a young woman, Hermia (Tiwa Lade) petitions Theseus to be allowed to marry the man she loves, she's instead given an ultimatum to accept her father's choice, or be executed.