1,016 posts
|
Post by andrew on Dec 25, 2023 21:45:11 GMT
1. Sunset Boulevard (I haven't been as enthused about anything like this since before Covid probably) 2. Next To Normal (Just excellent, perfect musical theatre) 3. Motive and the Cue (A great play, it was nice to see the National Theatre doing a proper National Theatre play in a National Theatre way and succeeding enormously) 4. Old Friends (Mainly for the talent on stage and the quality of the source material, how could it fail?) 5. Groundhog Day (seen it before but really enjoyed it, probably more than I did in it's last incarnation)
Bonus mention of Streetcar which was good but didn't quite make the top.
My 5 disappointments of the year (not necessarily lacking any quality but just the things that let me down) would be Phaedra, A Little Life, A Strange Loop, The Little Big Things, Pygmalion.
|
|
404 posts
|
Post by dlevi on Dec 26, 2023 6:35:31 GMT
This was a tough list to make - I found 17 shows to be the best of the year, which is damn good. But list making is a ruthless business so here goes.
1.Guys and Dolls 2.Streetcar 3.Motive and Cue 4.Two Strangers 5.Phaedra
honorable mentions to : Next to Normal, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, Dancing at Lunghasa, Vanya, A Little Life.
shows that I loathed: The Way Old Friends Do, Lyoneses, Little Big Things, Brokeback Mountain, and The Secret Life of Bees.
|
|
4,564 posts
|
Post by Mark on Dec 26, 2023 11:20:09 GMT
Sunset Boulevard Next to Normal Standing at the Sky's Edge A Streetcar Named Desire Dear England
Honorable mentions from across the pond: Shucked, Parade, Sweeney Todd
|
|
|
Post by wannabedirector on Dec 28, 2023 13:58:28 GMT
My top five for the year (in chronological order):
A Streetcar Named Desire (Almeida) The Motive and the Cue (NT Lyttelton) Dear England (NT Olivier) Grenfell: in the words of the survivors (NT Dorfman) Macbeth (Donmar Warehouse)
Good year all in all, especially at the NT (where the other three major plays in the Lyttelton, Phaedra, The Effect and Bernarda Alba, are all unlucky to miss out on this list), and quietly for the Donmar (where I enjoyed Private Lives and Clyde’s).
|
|
2,529 posts
Member is Online
|
Post by n1david on Dec 28, 2023 14:16:58 GMT
After ticking off my last show of the year last night I've now got my five, and in keeping with others I seem to be voting more for musicals this year than plays, even though on the whole I'm more of a plays person.
After the Act (New Diorama) A Strange Loop (Barbican) Accidental Death of an Anarchist (TR Haymarket) Vanya (Duke of Yorks) Sunset Boulevard (not sure anyone else caught this...)
We've now had over 400 votes cast, which is a new record, you still have just over 48 hours before I reveal the surprise winner, so if you haven't already given us your thoughts then please do so.
Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and, if you didn't, well at least it's over for another year...
|
|
154 posts
|
Post by cherokee on Dec 28, 2023 22:04:37 GMT
Top 5 of the year would be
The Motive and the Cue (National) Standing at the Sky's Edge (National) The Way Old Friends Do (Criterion) Accidental Death of an Anarchist (TR Haymarket) Good (Ambassadors)
|
|
1,197 posts
|
Post by theatrefan77 on Dec 29, 2023 1:43:11 GMT
My top 5:
The Motive and the Cue She Stoops To Conquer A Little Life The Circle Ulster American
|
|
|
Post by FrontroverPaul on Dec 29, 2023 2:16:17 GMT
The Railway Children - Electric Theatre, Guildford.
Cats - The Point, Eastleigh.
Daddy Longlegs - Gallery Studio Theatre, Ipswich.
Carousel - Royal Academy Of Music, London.
Holiday Inn - Wyllyotts Theatre, Potters Bar.
Five non-professional productions of the highest standard. So enjoyable I wanted to see them all again but could only do so for Carousel.
|
|
|
Post by aspieandy on Dec 29, 2023 7:55:55 GMT
I barely see musicals and it was still difficult to get it down to ten. Listing 1-5, then 6-10 separately
A Streetcar Named Desire (Almeida) - Ferran doing T. Williams full justice. I feel sure he would have loved this. Woolf Works (ROH/Ballet) - in pieces within 5-minutes. Scale of creativity to support the wrenching emotional plane .. Public Acts: The Odyssey: Episode 5 - The Underworld (NT) - I want to remember the Norris era this way. A magnificent commitment and realisation, with many lives enriched across the country. Swan Lake (ENB, Coliseum) - Powerful, feminine, marvellous, filled the largest stage Motive and the Cue (NT) - new writing choice: could have been the next listed but giving it to the back/front creative ensemble and also to the NT for doing NT things.
Infinite Life (NT) Tannhauser (ROH/Opera) Dancing at Lughnasa (NT) Standing at the Sky's Edge (NT) Don Quixote (ROH/Ballet)
Disappointed to not have more smaller venues on the list. Big year for the behemoths.
|
|
1,265 posts
|
Post by mkb on Dec 29, 2023 12:41:43 GMT
I still have one play to see, so this is a bit premature. (Surely January is the time to be doing all of this?)
Top five: Crazy For You (Gillian Lynne) Eurovision Song Contest, Grand Final (M&S Bank Arena, Liverpool) The Motive and the Cue (Lyttelton) Next to Normal (Donmar) Old Friends (Gielgud)
Other five-star productions: Backstairs Billy (Duke of York's) Cruise (HOME Manchester) A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (Lido 2 Paris) In Loyal Company (Pleasance Beyond, Edinburgh) Private Lives (Donmar) Pygmalion (Old Vic) Romeo and Juliet (Dorfman) Shirley Valentine (Duke of York's) The Unfriend (Criterion) The Witches (Olivier)
If Eurovision does not count as a theatrical production, then add A Funny Thing ... to the Top Five.
|
|
3,927 posts
|
Post by Dawnstar on Dec 29, 2023 13:40:56 GMT
I saw 61 performances in the last year but most of those were ballet, opera, improv or repeat viewing shows I'd already seen in previous years so I only actually saw 9 musical or play productions that were new to me. While I enjoyed them all to varying extents, the only ones that I think merit inclusion in this voting are:
Operation Mincemeat The Sound of Music (Chichester) Crazy For You
Now if we had voting for ballet & opera productions my list would be rather longer!
|
|
4,594 posts
|
Post by Someone in a tree on Dec 29, 2023 13:56:50 GMT
Dawnstar i included two operas into my top 5. My favourites are my favourites regardless of what you categorise them as
|
|
3,927 posts
|
Post by Dawnstar on Dec 29, 2023 15:38:44 GMT
Someone in a tree I thought there wasn't any point because so few people will have voted for any operas or ballets in comparison with musicals & plays that my vote wouldn't get anywhere. Also I'd be voting as more for particular casts rather than for productions as a whole, whereas this poll is more about productions.
|
|
2,529 posts
Member is Online
|
Post by n1david on Dec 29, 2023 16:24:12 GMT
Someone in a tree I thought there wasn't any point because so few people will have voted for any operas or ballets in comparison with musicals & plays that my vote wouldn't get anywhere. Also I'd be voting as more for particular casts rather than for productions as a whole, whereas this poll is more about productions. While it's true that operas or dance productions are going to make the Top 5, part of the reason I enjoy doing this is that it's nice to see the variety of everyone's favourites - particularly some of the fringe productions that won't get to the top either because they had smaller audiences. So I'd encourage you still to mention things that you enjoyed, because I (and others) like to see what people enjoyed this year! (But don't, of course, feel obliged to do so...) mkb: It started in December 2018 (without the idea of it being a poll, just suggesting that people list their favourites), and so I kick it off in December so that it's part of the festive season. But I will accept lists until midnight on December 31st, so if you'd like to resubmit if your last show of the year is an absolute stunner then feel free...
|
|
|
Post by nottobe on Dec 30, 2023 11:24:06 GMT
My top five of the year are 1- Accidental Death of an Anarchist - Theatre Royal Haymarket 2- Village Idiot - Stratford East 3- Ulster American - Riverside Studios 4- Standing at the sky's edge- National Theatre 5- Dancing at Lughnasa- National Theatre
|
|
1,868 posts
|
Post by Marwood on Dec 30, 2023 13:09:19 GMT
The top two of my top five were in New York so I don’t know if anyone will argue their merits but my top five for this year are:
1.Appropriate at the Hayes Theatre, NYC 2. A Dolls House at the Hudson Theatre, NYC 3. A Christmas Carol at the Old Vic 4. Guys and Dolls at the Bridge Theatre 5. The Motive and the Cue at the National
|
|
|
Post by dontdreamit on Dec 30, 2023 13:10:40 GMT
1. Bat Out Of Hell 2. Oklahoma! 3. Crazy For You 4. Bake Off- The Musical 5. Cabaret
No surprises for my top show for this year! I had a lovely 6 weeks of it back in town this year, I just wish Bat would go back out in tour again!
|
|
3,927 posts
|
Post by Dawnstar on Dec 30, 2023 13:12:11 GMT
While it's true that operas or dance productions are going to make the Top 5, part of the reason I enjoy doing this is that it's nice to see the variety of everyone's favourites - particularly some of the fringe productions that won't get to the top either because they had smaller audiences. So I'd encourage you still to mention things that you enjoyed, because I (and others) like to see what people enjoyed this year! (But don't, of course, feel obliged to do so...) Okay, including ballet & opera then my top 5 would be: Swan Lake ENB (particularly with the Iana Salenko/Francesco Gabriele Frola cast) Cinderella RB Operation Mincemeat The Sound Of Music Chichester Il Viaggio a Reims ETO I've still restricted myself to productions that are new to me, thus excluding a number of RB & ROH revivals that made up a fairly substantial proportion of my year's theatregoing.
|
|
|
Post by artea on Dec 30, 2023 13:32:26 GMT
1.Pandemonium 2.Phaedra 3.Wozzeck ROH 4.Rheingold ROH 5.Old Friends
|
|
1,465 posts
|
Post by foxa on Dec 30, 2023 14:27:06 GMT
No particular order:
The Motive and the Cue (NT) A Streetcar Named Desire (Almeida) The Circle (Orange Tree) Guys & Dolls (Bridge) Standing at the Sky's Edge (NT)
Honourable mentions: Watch on the Rhine (Donmar) A Mirror (Almeida) Blackout Songs (Hampstead) All of It (Royal Court)
|
|
3,081 posts
|
Post by david on Dec 30, 2023 15:08:57 GMT
1. Sunset Boulevard 2. Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends 3. Guys + Dolls 4. A Streetcar Named Desire 5. Accidental Death of an Anarchist
|
|
590 posts
|
Post by AddisonMizner on Dec 30, 2023 23:50:12 GMT
I have now seen the last of my shows for 2023, so can finally post my top 5. I've seen 20 shows in total this year. By far the most I have ever seen in a single year. Most were of incredible quality being around the 4 or 5 star mark (or I just know what I am likely to enjoy). I've looked through the list of shows seen, and gone back through all of my reviews to come up with a top 5 and put them in some sort of order. It is a mix of both plays and musicals, as I really haven't/don't see enough plays to make separate lists:
1. STEPHEN SONDHEIM'S OLD FRIENDS (Gielgud Theatre)
There was not really going to be anything else in this top spot, as nothing has even come close to it. A stunning tribute to the late Sondheim, delivered like the cast's lives depended on it. I laughed, I cried, and like I said at the time, probably the best thing I have ever seen!
2. NEXT TO NORMAL (Donmar Warehouse)
A real surprise here, as I really was not expecting to love this as much as I did. A brilliant piece of musical theatre writing and incredibly moving.
3. DEAR ENGLAND (National Theatre)
Who would have thought that I would not only enjoy a play with football at its centre, but that it would also make my top 5? Not me, that is for sure! Another brilliant play from James Graham.
4. THE BOOK THIEF (Leicester Curve)
A very moving new musical with a beautiful score. I hope it gets a further life, or at the very least a cast recording in the near future.
5. A LITTLE LIFE (Harold Pinter Theatre)
I notice that I didn't give this a star rating at the time, but looking back through the review, it clearly would have been 5 stars. A mammoth of a play and a very difficult watch at times, but with an absolute knock-out performance from James Norton.
Honourable Mentions:
SUNSET BOULEVARD (Savoy Theatre)
A bold reinvention of the classic Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. It takes some incredibly strong swings, and creates theatrical moments that I will be thinking about for a while.
LOVE NEVER DIES IN CONCERT (Theatre Royal Drury Lane)
One of my favourite Andrew Lloyd Webber scores brought thrillingly to life by the London Musical Theatre Orchestra, with a stonking central performance by Celinde Schoenmaker as Christine, where she does some of the best singing I have heard on the musical theatre stage (I have booked GUYS AND DOLLS early next year to see her, based on that performance alone). It was just a shame about her Phantom.
2024 begins in earnest next week with EVITA at Leicester Curve and PACIFIC OVERTURES at the Menier.
Happy New Year everyone!
|
|
|
Post by liv22 on Dec 31, 2023 10:17:46 GMT
My top 5 of 2023:
1. Operation Mincemeat (Fortune Theatre) 2. The Little Big Things (@sohoplace) 3. Standing at the Sky's Edge (National) 4. Dear England (Prince Edward) 5. Ride (Southwark Playhouse)
|
|
614 posts
|
Post by jamb0r on Dec 31, 2023 11:26:56 GMT
Groundhog Day La Cage Aux Folles Standing At The Sky’s Edge Next to Normal The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
|
|
6 posts
|
Post by whoknows on Dec 31, 2023 11:55:55 GMT
1. Groundhog Day 2. The Lehman Trilogy 3. Standing at the Sky’s Edge 4. Sunset Boulevard 5. From the Rehearsal Room Live at The Savoy with Hadley Fraser & Ramin Karimloo
|
|
382 posts
|
Post by stevemar on Dec 31, 2023 12:39:29 GMT
1/ A Streetcar Named Desire (Almeida) 2/ Guys and Dolls (Bridge) 3/ That Face (Orange Tree) 4/ Crazy for You (Gillian Lynne) 5/ She Stoops to Conquer (Orange Tree).
Other favourites: Othello (National), Phaedra (National), Cold War (Almeida), Peter Pan (Palladium), Standing at the Sky’s Edge (National).
48 shows seen this year.
|
|
243 posts
|
Post by theinvisiblegirl on Dec 31, 2023 12:39:46 GMT
1. Sunset Boulevard 2.Next To Normal 3. In Dreams 4. Bonnie & Clyde 5. Bloody Elle
|
|
|
Post by theatreloverlondon on Dec 31, 2023 12:40:25 GMT
1. SS’s Old Friends 2.SS’s Old Friend’s 3.SS’s Old Friend’s
4. Sunset Boulevard 5.Dear England
If I’m being honest.
|
|
1,199 posts
|
Post by Steve on Dec 31, 2023 18:21:38 GMT
I just can't narrow it down to 5, so I'd like to give half a point to 10, please: SUNSET BOULEVARD was incredible in every way. The video screen closeup Van Hove approach has never been more called for than in a musical about the power of the close-up. Jamie Lloyd dragged Tom Francis out of that anonymous body bag and made him a towering star, and Nicole Scherzinger's ott performance and turbocharged desire were absolutely overwhelmingly entertaining!; Sheridan Smith gave the funniest and the most relatable female performance of the year in SHIRLEY VALENTINE; Daniel Rigby gave the funniest male performance of the year in ACCIDENTAL DEATH OF AN ANARCHIST; Best musical ensembles of the year were tied, for me, between NEXT TO NORMAL, which had me weeping buckets, and GUYS AND DOLLS, which was rousing and hilarious from first to last. Half a point to each lol; Best dramatic performance by a male, for me, was Francis Lovehall in RED PITCH, who embodied the best and worst of humanity all at once, without ever striking a false note; Best dramatic performance by a female, for me, was Kate O'Flynn in ALL OF IT at the Royal Court, where she lived a whole ordinary life from cradle to the grave in one unforgettable hour; ULSTER AMERICAN proved David Ireland's Cyprus Avenue was no fluke, expanding his probing of Northern Ireland identities to include the perspectives and identities of careless outsiders. From the opening, in which Woody Harrelson bandies around the slur "fenian" cluelessly, to the moment Louisa Harland shows up, casting aside her softhearted Orla McCool Derry Girls character to be hilariously anything-but-cool, this show is funny, dramatic, topical and revealing in equal measure; And my last two top shows of the year both featured Patsy Ferran, with A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE revealing Blanche Dubois to be a pretty normal person just trying to exist in an emotionally corrupted and damaged world, and PYGMALION at the Old Vic suggesting a chasm in the ways people's brains work, with Ferran's all-feeling Eliza Doolittle unable to connect with Bertie Carvel's ebullient yet neurodivergent on-the-spectrum Professor Higgins. Carvel was remarkable in the role. So that's my ten. PS: Of note also this year were the flawless Rodgers and Hammerstein Concert, "My Favourite Year," the equally flawless Sondheim concert, "Old Friends," Ruth Wilson's 24 hour improv show at the Young Vic (of which I caught a thrilling 8 hours), "The Second Woman," the exquisite "Dancing at Lughnasa" production at the National, the thoughtful and comic "Marjorie Prime" at the Menier, with an emotive Anne Reid, Beverley Knight killing it in "Sylvia" again, Mark Gatiss and Johnny Flynn so perfectly becoming Gielgud and Burton, again at the National, Adrian Schiller being torn apart by compromising choices in "The White Factory" at Marylebone Theatre, the astonishing set and ensemble of "House of Bernarda Alba," again at the National, the ever-changing casts of "Cabaret," with Aimee Lou-Wood an exceptional comedienne of a Sally Bowles, Joseph Fiennes beautifully becoming Gareth Southgate in "Dear England," with Will Close making the most of every single line of his hilarious Harry Kane by appearing to do the absolute least, and the wonderful, marvellous, modest and uber-talented Haydn Gwynne giving us one more affecting character in the "Great British Bake off Musical." Goodbye 2023. You were a horrible year, except at the theatre.
|
|
2,529 posts
Member is Online
|
Post by n1david on Dec 31, 2023 18:56:42 GMT
Ach Steve giving me more work to add points to 10 different shows rather than 5, on Hogmanay evening too! But seeing it's you... (For the avoidance of doubt, anyone else who did the same thing also got their five points distributed more thinly...) Now to redraft the results post again! If you haven't come up with your Favourites list yet, you still have five hours...
|
|