While there may be a note of pessimism in recent reports of the West End theatres’ finances, local theatres here in the West are vitally alive and successfully finding their audiences.  2023 has seen two new Artistic Directors begin their tenures – Nancy Medina at the Bristol Old Vic and Heidi Vaughan at Tobacco Factory Theatres.  StageTalk reviewers have had a busy year reviewing drama, opera, ballet, and the extraordinary skills of circus theatre companies in multiple theatres as widely spread as Bristol, Cheltenham, Oxford, Stratford, Birmingham and Bath. What is striking is how  several reviewers have discovered their favourite plays occurred not so much in the main theatres, but rather in their smaller studios – the Ustinov Studio in Bath, the Weston Studio at Bristol Old Vic and the Irving Studio at the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham.

SIMON BISHOP

Two extraordinary performances this year ranked amongst the best I have ever seen. In January, the Bristol Old Vic staged an adaptation of Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk’s 2018 Nobel Prize winning novel Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of the Dead. Gravel-voiced Kathryn Hunter was utterly mesmerising as the narrator/protagonist Janina Duszejko, an ageing woman living alone with her dogs somewhere near the Polish/Czech Republic border, single-handedly battling against patriarchy, the church and the destruction of the natural world. This imaginatively realised Theatre Complicité production, directed by Simon McBurney, was a visceral plea for the powerless to be heard – theatre at its best.

Later in the year, at the Bristol Hippodrome, all the creative elements in a production came together in such a way as to blow away any pre-conceived ideas one might have had about ballet. Akram Khan’s re-imagining of Giselle, (Oct) , was one such moment in which he found an opportunity to turn a much-loved traditional story of love, betrayal, forgiveness and redemption into an uncompromising parable for our times. The scene leading to Giselle’s collapse was one of the most extraordinary I have witnessed in dance, as the company enclosed the dying heroine in a circular bundle of bodies heaving up and down like a beating heart – unforgettable.

Other stand-outs this year were Tracy-Ann Oberman’s performance in the RSC’s The Merchant of Venice, (Sep), in what could be a career-defining role as the first female in the role of Shylock.

OperaUpClose and Manchester Camerata’s ambitious re-telling of Richard Wagner’s epic tale and score The Flying Dutchman at the Great Eastern Hall next to the SS Great Britain, (July), made for a memorable and thought-provoking evening, while another breathless two hours of mayhem at The Wardrobe Theatre’s hit Christmas show The Good, The Bad and the Coyote Ugly, made fabulously raucous by four actors milking every absurd moment for its contemporary double entendres, provided a box of satirical delights to end the year.

BRYAN MASON

If You Fall, brought to the BOV Weston Theatre by Ad Infinitum, (Apr), addressed the ending of days, employing a sensitive use of rhythms and verbal repetition to plot the way through dementia, grief and, ultimately, death. It was total theatre, with a wonderful sound design and a talented cast operating in a simple yet dynamically clinical set. It transported the audience into the characters’ authentic personal life testimonies to tell a profound and uplifting story about the final journey.

As a contrast, 42^nd Street, (Aug), was about pure joy. Touring musicals have a tendency to disappoint, but this was something completely different. Fabulous costume design, immaculately sharp set changes, and a classic ‘star is born’ story were all there. However, what elevated this show was the masterclass in direction by Jonathan Church along with principal casting. Sam Lips was excellence personified while Nicole-Lily Baisden continued to see her star rise high and burn bright. She couldn’t help but steal scenes just by being there. If that wasn’t enough, it had hypnotic tap dancing like I had never seen before.

Nancy Medina’s Choir Boy, (Oct), thrilled me. At the time I thought it a curious choice for her debut as the new artistic director of the Bristol Old Vic, being an essentially American story about pupils in an elite school. The cast were undeniably top notch, but what impressed was how characters were allowed to grow. Plays about black men are rare, but rarer still are plays about black men as distinct complex individuals who are given the space to express their masculinity along with their vulnerability. Together with razor-sharp syncopation and a capella gospel singing, this was a press night to remember.

Although I did not review it, I loved Anna Karenina at the Old Vic for its energetic and compelling story telling and superb casting. Lindsay Campbell in the title role and Angus Miller as her feckless brother Stiva were both fabulous.

And I can’t bid farewell to 2023 without shedding a tear at the sad loss of Howard Coggins of Living Spit fame. I have never laughed so loudly or so long as when watching Living Spit shows, and am consoled that Stu McLoughlin and others will continue the company. A Christmas Carol at Clevedon Theatre Shop in December with Craig Edwards as Scrooge alongside Stu was pure raucous joy. Howard would have loved it.

ROS CARNE

By the end of 2023, I was in desperate need of smiles and laughter. So, thank you, Royal Shakespeare Company, for staging Isobel McArthur’s outstanding adaptation of Thomas Heywood’s The Fair Maid of the West at the Swan this December.The show is funny, relevant, and brilliantly performed. Heywood’s plot has been tweaked just enough to turn a 17th century romance into a contemporary ‘rom com’, with a live band pressing the nostalgia button for a wildly enthusiastic audience spanning several generations.

At the other extreme of powerful women, Valene Kane’s chilling, charismatic Lady Macbeth at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in August left a lingering impression.

Other than that, it was a mixed year for this reviewer. One aspect of life on stage that did stand out was the increasingly creative use of sound. Among several contenders, I would pick out Gecko Theatre’s Kin, (Oct), at the Oxford Playhouse.

This was a finely choreographed meditation on the theme of migration, with a tapestry of original music by David Price and a soundscape by Mark Melville. In a very different way, Murder in the Dark, (Sep), also at the Playhouse, used a spooky nursery rhyme to build dramatic tension. Finally, back to Macbeth, where Alasdair Macrae’s eerie score for brass and percussion evoked the spine-tingling atmosphere of both the blood-soaked castle and the haunted heath.

MIKE WHITTON

After a stimulating and thought-provoking twelve months of theatre-going, several shows jostle for a well-deserved place in my ‘best of’ list. Here are my three final choices:

The Ocean At The End Of The Lane: Back in March at the Bath Theatre Royal I was hugely impressed by this spectacular production, and it remains perhaps the most visually and aurally inventive show I saw all year. An especially memorable feature of this colourful piece of magic-realism was the ways it teasingly played with ideas of memory, reality and fantasy, with no less than three characters possibly being figments of the hero’s imagination. In the role of Hettie Hempstock, Millie Hikasa was tantalisingly both earthy and unearthly, all at the same time.

The Turn Of The Screw, (Dec), Another show featuring characters whose reality is in question was this Benjamin Britten opera at the Ustinov Studio in December. Superbly sung and acted, this was an intense, chilling work. On the night I attended, there were two quite extraordinarily accomplished performances from youngsters Maia Greaves and Oliver Michael. As siblings Flora and Milo, they succeeded in conveying simple innocence one moment, and something far more complex and disturbing the next. The Turn Of The Screw was very special indeed.

Machinal, also at the Ustinov, back in October, I found this play to be a revelation. Though she created it in 1928, Sophie Treadwell’s writing seems astonishingly modern, and astonishingly brave, too. With a mesmerising central performance from Rosie Sheehy, this was a harrowing account of a young woman’s increasing desperation as she finds herself trapped by the suffocating conventions of society. Inspired by a true story, the final scene where she is taken to the electric chair was almost unbearably moving. Directed imaginatively by Richard Jones and with a set design by Hyemi Shin that vividly conveyed a sense of entrapment, this exceptionally well-crafted show left one in no doubt that Machinal is an expressionist masterpiece.

TONY CLARKE

In my first full year of reviewing for StageTalk, I have been privileged to have witnessed so many inspiring stage shows, all of which have reinforced for me, in their own unique ways, the sheer power and pleasure of live theatre. Several shows stood out for me: Jenny Wren Productions’ rendering of Little Women, (Apr), at Swindon Arts Centre was a compelling one-woman tour de force in which Hannah Churchill simply excelled; Patrick Duffy led a superb cast in an utterly gripping and tension-filled performance of the late Bill Kenwright’s Twelve Angry Men, (Nov), at the Everyman in Cheltenham, and Malvern Theatre kept audiences on the edge of their seats with two outstanding shows – the enduringly haunting The Woman in Black, (Nov), and a chilling retelling of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

The Bodyguard, (Aug), saw Zoe Birkett give a stellar performance as Whitney Houston in the year’s standout musical, whereas in a year when many iconic and popular films transitioned to the stage, Kenwright’s The Shawshank Redemption was an utterly compelling performance with a superbly talented cast operating at the height of their powers. Bill Kenwright is such a huge loss to the world of theatre and the arts, but his legacy will doubtless live on through a string of memorable shows.

My own personal favourite came late in the year. Whilst Cirencester’s marvellous Barn Theatre served up a festive gem in Treasure Island, my standout show of 2023 was to be found upstairs in the Everyman’s Irving Studio Theatre. Paul Milton’s clever, contemporary reworking of A Christmas Carol, featuring a small but very talented cast, was an intimate, powerful, funny and utterly charming retelling of Dickens’ timeless tale, and a reminder to all who saw it of the beguiling and affecting power of theatre. We are indeed fortunate to have been blessed with so many excellent shows this year – let us hope 2024 brings more of the same.

GRAHAM WYLES

It’s been a year of ups and downs. The highly successful Tom Morris left the Bristol Old Vic leaving the direction of our nationally important local theatre being taken over by Nancy Medina. The American production, Choir Boy gave us a taste of things to come with some of the high quality acting the theatre has come to represent over the years. At the Theatre Royal Bath, Ian McKellan and Roger Allam gave us some acting of the highest calibre in Frank and Percy, (July), whilst the biggest surprise for me was the bravura performance by Mark Thomas in England and Son, (Oct), at the Tobacco Factory. At The Alma theatre, Trojan Women, (Nov), reminded us that innovation should be a staple in theatrical fare with their multi-lingual offering based on the classic by Euripides. In the same vein Ockham’s Razor, a circus skills theatre company gave us a memorable reworking of Tess, (Oct), using all the skills we’ve come to associate with this kind of theatre, whilst Ballet Rambert continues to show how dance could have its finger on the zeitgeist. The RSC gave us the enjoyable Cowbois, (Oct), a musical dig at the macho image of the Wild West . However the two standout shows of my own reviewing year were found at the Bristol Old Vic and the Ustinov. At the former, Kathy and Stella Solve a Murder,(Sep), had huge fun with moments of pathos in a story about friendship and the approval of strangers.

Whilst the Ustinov, in an almost unbelievable run of outstanding theatre  gave us in Farewell Mister Haffmann, (Sep), what I must say I didn’t think possible  – a new take on the Nazi occupation of Europe that was gripping, moving and thought provoking.

Photo credits: Camilla Greenwell, Camilla Adams, Ali Wright, Mark Sepple, Ellie Kurttz, Mark Drouet, Fonteini-Christofilopoulou, Brinkhoeff-Moegenburg