Critics’ Choice: Franco Milazzo's Best Theatre Of 2025

Looking back over 2025, it appears I sat in a dark room and wrote barely legible thoughts into a notebook on about 150-odd occasions. By the grace of God and the BroadwayWorld UK editor, I saw a real smörgåsbord of delights, everything from highly anticipated West End theatre to opera, dance, circus, cabaret, comedy and immersive theatre. 

This article is not going to be the standard Top 10 that some writers expel as a kind of annual statutory duty, the critic’s equivalent of a self-assessment tax return. And my chief criteria is nothing to do with pure theatrical quality (that would make for a much, much longer affair) so this is no hymn to excellent stuff like Paddington, Giant, or Punch. There will also be no mentions of any of the latest attempts to make the Bard’s works relevant beyond GCSE students. Instead, this is a double-handful of the most memorable evenings I spent this year, the shows that went above and beyond my expectations and gave me hope for the future.

One last note. There’s a decent chance that one or more of the entries below belong to an art form you maybe have little knowledge of or time for. My plea: let 2026 be the year that you give the West End the side-eye, leave behind the expensive seats that even Ryanair would consider to be a tad cramped, and throw yourself into something different with open eyes and an open heart. I hope to see you down in the pews.

Kenrex, Southwark Playhouse and The Other Palace

Come the Oliviers next Spring, the winners will have a familiar feel to anyone who has walked down Shaftesbury Avenue this year. Expect the big names to win big, the worthy ones to get mentions and the rest left to enjoy the free prosecco. If that happens, a huge opportunity will have been missed.

Kenrex, a true crime story about a murder in Skidmore, Missouri, is so much more than just a collection of kooky townfolk, twisty narratives and a gobsmacking denouement. It’s a pitch-perfect display of acting from co-writer Jack Holden who plays every single character including the titular hulking bully, his slimy Saul Goodman-like lawyer and the young prosecutor determined to finally put his nemesis behind bars. It’s a wall of sound played amid an ingenious set design that immerses us headfirst into the heart of this darkness. It’s a play that thunders along at top speed with Elmer Leonard yammering in the back and Quentin Tarantino riding shotgun. No-one walks out of Kenrex the same way they walked in.

And more than just a thrilling night out, it points to how theatre can compete with Netflix, how it can adapt and perchance outgrow the hoary classics and how it can become once more a place for more diverse audiences without needing to hire the latest screen star. Something to ponder when (not if) West End theatre productions with blockbuster budgets and world-famous talent walk away with the trophies next April.
 

Meow Meow: It’s Come To This, Soho Theatre

You never truly know what to expect from Meow Meow. On the one hand, the woman otherwise known as Melissa Madden Gray is an internationally renowned actor and cabaret singer who has performed at the Globe and is as comfortable in French, Italian and German as she is in her native English. On the other, she is a world-class circus clown able to bring the house down with her wickedly funny cocktail of sardonic facial expressions, physical antics and perfect timing. And then there’s the fact that she could humble a giant with her arsenal of stone-cold manners, passive aggressive taunts and expert manhandling.

In her latest oeuvre It’s Come To This, she plays again the almighty talent who once graced Carnegie Hall and is currently desperately disappointed to be here, wherever “here” might be. She reacts to this latest apparent downturn in her career as she always does: dazzling displays of musical talent are doled out in between the kind of audience interactions that usually necessitate a few long sessions with the therapist.

She is perhaps a softer version of Doctor Brown — a man who comes across as someone who would rip your face off as soon as look at it — but not by much. Dignity (and whatever you else came in with) should not be something you should expect to have by the time the lights come up.

Any Meow Meow show is an event to be savoured and this year’s was no exception. Should she favour London once more with her presence, please go but don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Oh, Mary!, Trafalgar Theatre

Not since The Play That Goes Wrong has the West End seen such an unashamedly silly and snappy new comedy. Watching Oh, Mary! is like wandering into a respectable historical museum and discovering someone has replaced the audio guide with a flask of gin and a kazoo. It is ostensibly about First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln (wife of you-know-who), but that is rather like saying the Great Fire of London was a particularly warm time of the year. 

The Civil War is very much in the rear view mirror as we rattle between storylines around frustrated musical ambition, secret love affairs and the sexual power of ice cream. Mason Alexander Park is the first to bat as Mary in what will likely be a Cabaret-style revolving door. They ride the title role in this relentlessly hilarious farce with all the relentless focus and determination of a winning jockey eying the finishing line, cavorting around the stage in a hoop skirt and spouting quickfire gags with barely a moment to breathe. If Groucho Marx had directed Fawlty Towers, it would likely have ended up something like this.

In a year that was hardly riddled with laugh-a-minute comedies, did this one hit the spot? Oh, yes.

Handle With Care, Battersea Arts Centre

Human connection is not something that this world has ever had too much of. Handle With Care has no actors, no set design to speak of, just a box containing instructions and props. By the end, though, everyone in the room feels that little bit closer to each other and everyone else around the world who has gone through this experience.

It starts with a metaphorical igniting of the imagination; it finishes with the actual setting on fire of the box and its contents. There’s no point saying exactly what happens in between, especially as plenty depends on how much the humans in the room want to connect and engage with each other and Ontroerend Goed’s ingenious invention. To paraphrase Tom Lehrer’s maxim, Handle With Care is like a sewer: what you get out of it rather depends on what you put into it.

Immersive theatre has not had its greatest year ever in no small part due to the much-hyped and much-derided trio of Storehouse, Elvis Evolution and The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. In Handle With Care, there is a shining example of something that turns the concepts of classic theatre upside down and inside out to create an incredibly refreshing and distinctly different work. Hell, it even inspired me to write poetry.

Fanny, King’s Head Theatre

There is still a sense that the King’s Head is finding its feet after its relocation-cum-transformation from backroom pub theatre to its new subterranean setup next door. With Calum Findlay’s riotous comedy Fanny, it may well get its first West End transfer.

This shouldn’t be an epic surprise to anyone who read the programme. Its star Charlie Russell remains a Mischief Theatre mainstay and brings much of that award-winning company’s rich sense of the ridiculous to a story about composer Felix Mendelssohn’s equally talented sister. When he takes credit for one of her works (in front of Queen Victoria, no less), Fanny takes umbrage and sets off from Austria to London to put the record straight.

This nuanced work covers worthy topics like artistic attribution and gender inequality within a sizzling script filled with insightful jabs that come at you at every turn. The superbly-timed slapstick, slam-dunk gags and groanworthy puns may get the biggest and loudest reactions but it is the loaded dialogue between family members that stays with you longest.

Kyoto, @sohoplace

Diplomatic negotiations over climate change targets are not the most obvious or exciting of premises but, in the hands of Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson, Kyoto manages to be astonishingly good fun.

There’s a twist, of course. The genius move here is that everything is seen through the eyes of real-life lawyer Don Pearlman (Stephen Kunken), a Machiavellian figure who is being paid by Big Oil to sabotage the talks. With the nihilistic persistence of Darth Vader and the charm of the devil himself, Pearlman has success after success before facing his toughest challenge: the 1997 Kyoto conference.

Deploying a series of tactics that would leave Sun Tzu impressed, the American pits different countries and entire international blocs against each other and out-manoeuvres those looking to frustrate his efforts. Watching Pearlman destroy reasonable arguments with consummate ease while dashing around on a massive wooden conference table should not be this enjoyable. And yet Kunken does the unthinkable and even has us seeing things from the lawyer’s perspective: would a little global warming be so bad?

Just before the curtain falls, Pearlman’s wife leaves us with an unforgettable moment. She describes her husband’s last years and then suddenly breaks the fourth wall. She asks us: why should we stick around to hear about someone we don’t like from someone we don’t know? She answers her own question briefly and brutally: the world is full of people we don’t like and full of people we don’t know.

In Pursuit Of Repetitive Beats, Barbican

For those looking to relive the second summer of love and the late-Eighties Acid House rave scene or just wanted to feel what it might be like to fly through the cosmos, the updated “Virtual Reality adventure” In Pursuit Of Repetitive Beats from Darren Emerson is a compelling experience. 

There are several longstanding VR alternatives around London (not least Layered Reality’s War Of The Worlds and Eclipso’s Colosseum: The Legendary Arena) but In Pursuit is a cut above both. Its artistic direction is light on drama and character work but there’s no faulting the visual and physical sense of being transported to another time and place.

The rich and realistic environments are almost tangible. Exploring is encouraged as we move from teenage bedroom to cop station to club. Virtual items can be picked up, examined and passed to others in your group. Pause to look at a TV or a poster and recorded video interviews from ex-clubbers, DJs and police are triggered.

Haptic vests add a fantastic level of connection as the thrumming of the bass in the clubs pulses through the body. The view goes beyond 360-degrees in the trippier scenes when we were lifted into the sky and then outer space to simulate the mind-expanding effects of the ever-present drugs.

At a time when AI is seen to be having a corrosive effect on the world in general and the arts in particular, In Pursuit showed how Emerson’s scintillating creative vision was exponentially enhanced through the clever use of modern technology.

One Man Musical, Underbelly Soho

If sacred cows make the best burgers, musical comedy duo Flo & Joan could soon become the most popular fast food merchants around. Their One Man Musical was a word-of-mouth hit that had two runs at Soho Theatre in 2023 before casually sauntering across the road to Underbelly Boulevard in January. Joining forces with actor and comedian George Fouracres, this has all the makings of an instant classic.

For those unaware of who the “one man” is, it becomes clear early on that the musical siblings had come not to praise Andrew Lloyd Webber but to hilariously bury him in his own faintly ridiculous history. 

Everything from the Lord’s “humble” beginnings in a South Kensington mansion to his marriages and fruitful if rocky partnership with Tim Rice were up for grabs. Thanks to some well-written songs and skits, there was plenty of meat to go along with the epic servings of sauce but, despite its own protestations, One Man Musical is more salacious and scandalous than slanderous.

Burnt Toast, Battersea Arts Centre

It’s difficult to say at which exact point during Susie Wang’s Burnt Toast I noticed that my jaw had dropped and stayed dropped. If Sarah Kane’s Blasted had been set in Fawlty Towers, it may have turned out something like this.

“Wang” (a collective name for writer and director Trine Falch, composer and sound designer Martin Langlie, actor Mona Solhaug and set designer Bo Krister Wallstrøm) aim to create what they call “the theatrical un-real”. If that’s their mission statement, then they should consider Burnt Toast to be a mission accomplished. 

The descent to remarkable depths of Lynchian depravity is evenly paced, every jolt further down barely signalled before it happens. Body parts are sliced open or lost, arterial blood is sprayed around and mysterious fluids are sucked from unusual places. There’s even the occasional jump scare, usually when the twin lifts at the back suddenly open, close or malfunction.

It’s not just an joyfully uncomfortable watch: Langlie’s immersive sound design amplifies to painful levels the tap-tap-tap of long nails hitting a keyboard alongside the squelchy sounds of chewing gum. Nails down a blackboard would be preferable to how he recreates the sound of a recent and juicy wound being reopened once more.

There are points where Burnt Toast could reasonably be accused of shock for shock’s sake but, then again, how many other plays finish with audiences cheering on a small black box as it slowly powers its own way up a ramp?

'Till The Stars Come Down, Theatre Royal Haymarket

Set over the course of a single tumultuous wedding day in a working-class Mansfield household, Beth Steel’s Till The Stars Come Down is nothing short of a theatrical detonation — explosive in its emotion, incisive in its politics, and utterly absorbing in its execution. In the hands of director Bijan Sheibani, this already potent script becomes a jagged, hilarious, and devastating portrait of a family teetering on multiple brinks: of a breakdown, of a breakthrough, and of a country losing its grip on itself.

There are some well trodden topics here: Brexit, adultery and the kind of sibling arguments that would leave an army of UN negotiators exasperated. There’s also heart, and love, and tears. By the time the stars metaphorically come down, Steel has done something astonishing: taken the most British of genres — the kitchen sink drama — and infused it with cosmic significance. This is a play about a family, yes, but it’s also about a related group of people staring into the abyss and wondering just how they got there.

Follow me for more reviews in 2026.

Main Photo credit: Simen Ulvestad (Burnt Toast)