Naima Khan takes you through the highs and lows of the last year on the London theatre scene.
In a brief pause between the screams about the cuts and after the near-perfect Kissing Sid James at New Red Lion Theatre, the year for me really began in February at The Offies, an award ceremony that set the tone for refining excellence in off-West End theatre. It proved an urgent cause given the spate of mediocre shows hitting the West End. For a reminder of those flops, read Emma Berge's hilarious review of Betwixt! and her disappointment at Knee High's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.
But away from the West End failures, were fringe champions of the musical genre including revivals of Ragtime, Jason Robert Brown's Parade and Anthony Drewe's take on You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown. The vast empty space between these small budget, high quality shows and the early closures of the big budget ones got many a theatre critic, including Catherine Love, wondering where all the great composers have gone.
As well as great composers, great writers seem to have been in short supply this year. The best of the newcomers include Vivian Franzmann with her social epic Mogadishu and Andrew Sheridan with Winterlong.
2010's emerging writers like Sam Holcroft and Arinze Kene proved their mettle with Edgar and Annabel and Little Baby Jesus respectively, both of which are definitely up there with the best plays of the year, alongside Cheek By Jowl's boisterous (and wet) depiction of The Tempest.
Finborough Theatre also rocked once more with Sally Woodcock's Fanta Orange and Dawn King's examination of belief systems. And King wasn't the only one with her head wrapped up in notions of control, fear and sacrifice as The Royal Court showed with a couple of absolute blinders in The Heretic and their revival of Arnold Wesker's Chicken Soup With Barley. They stumbled however when it came to The Faith Machine, but redeemed themselves with Rachel De-lahay's formidable The Westbridge
Not such a good year for National Theatre though who also tried their hand at a Wesker revival with a bitterly disappointing version of The Kitchen. They too took a stab at a combination of belief and politics with Mike Barlett's 13 which failed to address the grey areas with any guts. Even Mike Leigh failed to blow anything out of the water but satisfied with something classic and contemplative.
Oh, but The National did have a hand in Headlong's Decade which handled the tenth anniversary of 9/11 with aplomb in a collaborative effort directed by Rupert Goold. Speaking of 9/11: riots, hacking scandals and a Royal Wedding gave 2011 the potential to be one of the most gimmicky years of theatre. Topical plays made their voices heard but those voices were thankfully small and forgetful. Among the riotous, regal and the scandalous were Civil Unrest, The Prisoner of Windsor, The Last Duchess and Hacked.
For me, the best plays in London this year were Philip Ridley's highly emotive Tender Napalm, Clever As Clever's simply brilliant Public Interest at New Diorama and Tactical Questioning at Tricycle. The dance extravaganza of the year was appropriately called The Most Incredible Thing and though flawed, it featured a pair of the most expressive feet you'll ever see.
Next year sees a lot of new appointments, including Madani Younis getting into full swing at The Bush, Indhu Rasbringham taking the helm at Tricycle Theatre and Christopher Haydon at the Gate Theatre. It all indicates a good year of new writing to come.
Top image by Julie Khan
Click here for Emma McAlpine's thoughts on Comedy in 2011 or Tom Jeffreys on Art in 2011
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