2022 Year in Review: Gary Naylor's Best of 2022

LIke so much else in this benighted Britain, theatre needs a rebirth in 2023, the future looking - shall we say - uncertain.

What won't bring that renaissance are plays like Richard Eyre's tired The Snail House at Hampstead Theatre (though, with its Arts Council funding cut viciously by a party that used to scorn such social engineering, this is a time to rally round that venue and its commitment to developing new writers).

What will breathe new life into theatre are plays like Tyrell Williams' vibrant Red Pitch at the Bush Theatre and Philippa Lawford's emotional Ikaria at the Old Red Lion Theatre.

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1. Red Pitch, Bush Theatre

The show (pictured above) explored three lads navigating their transition to adulthood while the ground moved beneath them, literally with the bulldozing gentrification of West London in full swing, and metaphorically as the nights of carefree pickup football gave way to adult responsibilites. Press night standing ovations have become a tedious cliche, but the one for this show was deserved and heartfelt.

2. Ikaria, Old Red Lion Theatre

Ikaria was an increasingly rare example of a play rooted in a hot-button issue (men's mental health) that crept up on you rather than crashed in and crushed the characters. It also displayed a confidence in the form that one seldom saw in the leading houses of London in 2022, never mind from a first-time playwright.

3. Beyond the Capital.

Arthur Hughes gave one of the most commanding performances of the year as Richard III at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre - mischievous, Machiavellian and amusing. Estella at the Trinity Theatre, Tunbridge Wells provided a much appreciated evening out of a stiflingly hot London, a lovely venue staffed by lovely people.

Into The Woods at the Theatre Royal Bath was an extraordinary reinvention of the Sondheim musical, overspilling with visual wonders and fine singing, a show that had been scheduled for the Old Vic - their loss. The RSC's musical adaptation of My Neighbour Totoro was as stunning at the Barbican, pulling off the not inconsiderable trick of pleasing the Miyazaki superfans who guard his legacy with a vengeance.

4. Standout Performances

Two other large scale shows, this time populated by young actors, delivered extraordinary (how can I describe them?) events that will live long in the memory.

Chickenshed yet again eschewed the easy option and delivered a searing dramatisation of the 1978 Jonestown massacre, The Washing Line. To bring so many of their students into the production lent an extraordinary scale to a play that packed an enormous punch in its own right - unique.

That's the adjective for Alecky Blythe's verbatim works, the latest being Our Generation at The National Theatre. Tracking twelve schoolkids over five years and presenting them in their own words across well over three hours is a tremendous feat of storytelling. One's heart soared and slumped - as it should when witnessing great theatre - and we left wondering what would happen next for these decent, difficult teens.

At the other end of the scale, intimate venues showed that they could concentrate dramatic tension. The Dwarfs at the White Bear Theatre adapted Harold Pinter's only novel and drew the strongest performance I saw from an ensemble cast all year long in a play that had much to say to 'Generation Rent'.

The Finborough Theatre travelled 500 miles north in distance and 34 years back in time to find The Straw Chair in which Siobhan Redmond was magnificently dissolute. Clare Latham matched her power in the coruscating one-woman play Wolf Cub at Hampstead Theatre Downstairs. Jodie Comer's astonishing turn in Prima Facie will rightly garner many awards, but Ms Latham was not far behind in holding an audience in her hand.

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I'll finish on a plea for 2023. Can we have more unabashed comedies like The Play With Speeches at the Jack Studio Theatre? It's not just that we need to laugh as individuals streaming at home, it's that we need to hear the laughter of others, to celebrate that joy collectively. It's the most wonderful, most necessary sound and nowhere does it better than a theatre.

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