3,321 posts
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Post by david on Dec 31, 2021 16:11:39 GMT
My top 5 -
1. Anything Goes 2. South Pacific 3. What's New Pussycat? 4. The Normal Heart 5. Joseph
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630 posts
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Post by jamb0r on Dec 31, 2021 17:21:34 GMT
1. Spring Awakening 2. Life of Pi 3. Bedknobs & Broomsticks 4. Anything Goes 5. Cabaret
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12 posts
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Post by supongo on Dec 31, 2021 19:11:14 GMT
1. Jenufa (ROH) 2. Macbeth (Almeida) 3. Come From Away 4. Constellations (Atim/Jeremiah) 5. Anything Goes
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395 posts
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Post by lichtie on Dec 31, 2021 21:29:14 GMT
I've excluded things I've seen in previous years (or else Christmas Carol and P&P Sort of would be in here too somewhere). Note sure about the order of the rest but here goes... 1. Operation Mincemeat (SP) 2. Afterlife (Dorfman) 3. East is East (Lyttleton) 4. Camp Siegfried (OV) 5. Anna X (Pinter)
Turkey of the year probably goes to one of the Globe productions but it's hard to pick which one was poorest.
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2,761 posts
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Post by n1david on Jan 1, 2022 9:45:31 GMT
Happy New Year everyone!
Thanks everyone once again for your contributions for this, the fourth annual “Pick of the Board”.
This year we had 220 votes in total, which is up somewhat from last year’s 173 votes but still a way short from 2019’s 326 and 2018’s 298.
We had votes for a total of 95 productions, which is quite a lot fewer than last year’s 126, so there’s quite a bit more concentration at the top end - last year’s winner, Uncle Vanya got only 6.5 votes so this year’s winner has absolutely run away with things as earlier predicted.
So without further ado I can announce that the Favourite Show of the Year amongst Theatreboard posters (who cast a vote) is…
ANYTHING GOES with a massive 26 votes.
Tied in second place were the top-rated play, the Almeida's Tragedy of Macbeth, and another of this year's big-budget musicals, Cabaret with 10 votes. Next in fourth came the Normal Heart from the NT with 9 votes. There wasn't much love for the other shows in the Olivier or Lyttleton this year with only one vote across the entire repertoire this year.
In fifth place was the highest-placed non-London show, South Pacific in Chichester with 8 votes. It will be interesting to see whether the tour and London run of this yields some more votes for the show this year.
A nod to Joseph in sixth with 7 votes, and the top Fringe show in seventh with Operation Mincemeat with 6.5. With another run already heavily sold this year, it will be interesting to see if this continues to grow support.
Then three productions tying in joint 8th with 6 votes - two new ones Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of) and Spring Awakening - the latter topping a good year for the Almeida given the number of cancelled shows before Christmas. And Come From Away in there too also on 6.
As ever, the scores are not really the important thing, and it’s been great to see the diversity of shows that posters have enjoyed, there being a long list of 60 productions, often in small venues or for short runs, which each got 1 vote from somebody. That shows such an impressive range of theatre-making in this country, and I hope all our theatre-makers know how much their work is appreciated, even if the final product doesn’t always meet with universal approval.
Let’s hope (again) I have more votes to count next year - same place same time?
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382 posts
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Post by stevemar on Jan 1, 2022 12:10:26 GMT
Thanks for compiling the votes n1 david - hope you had a lovely new year!
That has got to be the biggest landslide number 1 hasn’t it? Glad I got to see most of the top shows there (Cabaret to come). Obviously I’m a man of impeccable taste..🙄.
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2,761 posts
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Post by n1david on Jan 1, 2022 12:44:54 GMT
That has got to be the biggest landslide number 1 hasn’t it? In 2018, Company actually got a larger share of the votes in total than Anything Goes but didn't have as big a margin over the no.2, The Inheritance - that ended up 31 to 21. 2019 was a bit closer but Come From Away still finished up nearly 10 votes ahead. So it seems like each year there's one big musical that just about everyone agrees on. Voting on plays tend to be more diverse and we seem to end up with two or three plays that vie for the position of top play. Totally unscientific of course but I do find it interesting each year what bubbles to the top. Shows that run over Christmas suffer as some people will see them in Nov/Dec and others in the New Year, and in 2018 and 2019 there seemed to be a recency bias, with people voting for shows that ran later in the year, maybe forgetting what they'd seen earlier in the year. It'll be interesting to see next year if the new runs of Anything Goes and South Pacific have any significant impact, and whether Cabaret's recasting prompts fresh votes or not.
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Post by Jan on Jan 1, 2022 13:17:56 GMT
That has got to be the biggest landslide number 1 hasn’t it? In 2018, Company actually got a larger share of the votes in total than Anything Goes but didn't have as big a margin over the no.2, The Inheritance - that ended up 31 to 21. 2019 was a bit closer but Come From Away still finished up nearly 10 votes ahead. So it seems like each year there's one big musical that just about everyone agrees on. Voting on plays tend to be more diverse and we seem to end up with two or three plays that vie for the position of top play. Totally unscientific of course but I do find it interesting each year what bubbles to the top. Shows that run over Christmas suffer as some people will see them in Nov/Dec and others in the New Year, and in 2018 and 2019 there seemed to be a recency bias, with people voting for shows that ran later in the year, maybe forgetting what they'd seen earlier in the year. It'll be interesting to see next year if the new runs of Anything Goes and South Pacific have any significant impact, and whether Cabaret's recasting prompts fresh votes or not. My impression is there's usually a bias towards musicals ?
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2,761 posts
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Post by n1david on Jan 1, 2022 13:35:37 GMT
My impression is there's usually a bias towards musicals ? Only slightly. This year (based on my back-of-envelope calculation) we got 120 votes in total for musicals and 90 for plays (the rest being operas, ballet, concerts etc). But there were a total of 34 musicals named and 49 plays. So the "average" musical got 3.5 votes but the "average" play just 1.8. There's a slight bias in the overall voting towards to musicals, but the final result is generally more influenced by the fact that plays tend to have limited runs, compared to a musical which might run all year, so they have a smaller audience overall. Also anecdotally on this board there seems to be more of a tendency for people to see a musical more than once, which is more unusual for plays. So someone might see five musicals three times and that's how they list their Top 5, but someone who sees more plays sees 15 plays over the same period, but can only vote for 5 of them, so ten of the plays don't get a vote. If that's repeated amongst multiple members, then the musicals will inevitably end up ahead. But that's conjecture.
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