Theatre
10. Standing at the Sky’s Edge
One iconic housing estate in Sheffield, three intersecting families and a glorious riot of songs by Richard Hawley comprised this big-hearted belter of a musical, with a sparkling book by Chris Bush. Directed by Robert Hastie and previously staged in Sheffield, the show rightly won an Olivier award for best new musical after its run at the National Theatre. Read the review
9. Happy Days
Landmark Productions’ masterful touring version of Samuel Beckett’s absurdist play – seen at Birmingham Rep – was a thing of glittering beauty. Much of that was down to fine direction by Caitríona McLaughlin and a mesmerising turn by Siobhán McSweeney as Winnie, who refuses to submit to self-pity or pessimism. In McSweeney’s hands she appeared more clownish yet no less human, and immensely tragic. Read the review
8. Stranger Things: The First Shadow
This darkly glittering monster of a production in the West End, adapted by Kate Trefry from the retro sci-fi Netflix behemoth, might easily have been a cynically lucrative exercise in imitation. It turned out to be a blast of a show, with an imagination that had an integrity of its own and majestic stage spectacle so encompassing that it feels immersive. Truly out of this world. Read the review
7. Trojan Women
This grand, operatic production by the National Changgeuk Company of Korea at the Edinburgh international festival explored the fall of Troy from the point of view of the women left behind – to scintillating effect. The aftermath of war and its trauma was captured through the lens of widows, daughters, queens and concubines, while its music, composed by K-pop producer Jung Jae-il and pansori master Ahn Sook-sun, was a magnificent blend of ancient and modern. Read the review
6. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
Complicité’s touring adaptation of Olga Tokarczuk’s novel looked ill-fated when the mighty Kathryn Hunter bowed out on opening night at London’s Barbican. But Amanda Hadingue’s turn as the beady-eyed, elderly protagonist of this murder mystery-cum-eco-noir was pitch perfect. The show, directed by Simon McBurney, budded from a single mic on a bare stage to verdant forests and vast constellations. Read the review
5. High Steaks
Eloina’s one-woman touring show, performed naked with two pieces of raw beef steak hanging from her labia, was the talk of the Edinburgh fringe and for good reason. A quirky and deeply affecting play about labia-shaming and cosmetic surgery, it managed to make audiences laugh, cry and think deeply about body image and shaming. A Vagina Monologues for gen Z. Read the review
4. The Architect
A bus ride on the 30th anniversary of Stephen Lawrence’s murder took its audience through his neighbourhood in London, past the memorial raised in his name and the bus stop at which his racist killing took place. Conceived by Mojisola Adebayo, Roy Williams and Matthew Xia, this Greenwich + Docklands international festival production was filled with warmth, hope, sadness and joy, all accompanied by a lovably bossy bus conductor in Llewella Gideon. Read the review
3. One Who Wants to Cross
Some shows lodge in the mind and refuse to be forgotten. The Finborough’s devastating two-hander about a migrant marooned on the wrong side of a stretch of water, prevented from restarting his life after an unnamed trauma, was one of them. Written with stark, minimalist poetry by Marc-Emmanuel Soriano and translated from French by Amanda Gann, it served as a compassionate antidote to the prevailing anti-immigration hysteria of our times. Read the review
2. All Right. Good Night.
German theatre company Rimini Protokoll spend years researching each show. They dug deep for this riveting production at Home for the Manchester international festival. Directed by Helgard Haug, it brought together the very public disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in 2014, carrying 239 people, and the psychic “disappearance” of Haug’s elderly father into illness after his dementia diagnosis. Both strands asked profound and moving questions about identity, illness and death. Read the review
1. The Second Woman
Ruth Wilson signed up to the herculean task of staying up for 24 hours to perform in Nat Randall and Anna Breckon’s avant garde theatrical marathon at the Young Vic in London. A single, unrehearsed scene was played out 100 times with various actors joining Wilson on stage. If that sounds repetitive, it was not only different each time but more captivating as the night – and following day – wore on. Guest actors included Andrew Scott, Idris Elba, Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù and Toby Jones but it was Wilson’s spellbinding performance that kept us wide-eyed. A once in a lifetime experience for this critic, who stayed up for the full 24-hour cycle and was left astonished, elated and utterly shattered. Read the review. Arifa Akbar
Comedy
10. Kate Berlant Is Kate
A twisty mock autobiography and self-sendup by one of the world’s wickedest comic talents, Kate Berlant’s show – a spoof on narratives of celebrity self-realisation – arrived in the UK in a blaze of hipster hype. Was it quite as funny as Berlant’s standup? Maybe not – but Kate was a must-see all the same. Read the review
9. Ian Smith: Crushing
Every generation needs its fall guy for the indignities and annoyances of modern life. After Lee Evans came Rhod Gilbert, and next comes … Ian Smith? Perhaps. The Goole man’s Edinburgh fringe hour was a masterpiece of miffedness, as Smith’s efforts to de-stress after a breakup repeatedly hit the buffers. Read the review
8. Rosalie Minnitt: Clementine
Jane Austen, the Brontës, Downton Abbey – Rosalie Minnitt’s Clementine takes a bit of all of them, bungs them in a blender with 21st-century femininity, then perches a frilly bonnet on top. The result? One of the freshest and funniest shows of the year, a frenetic, neurotic and time-bending character comedy. Read the review
7. James Acaster: Hecklers Welcome
Why does one of the finest standups now working have such vexed feelings about standup? In Hecklers Welcome, Acaster returned to the roots of his performing life, excavating tale after humiliating tale to explain his neurotic relationship with the stage – and letting hecklers have their say, too. A treat. Read the review
6. Catherine Cohen: Come for Me
Her sensational 2019 debut The Twist…? She’s Gorgeous pitched this attention-hogging neurotic at a level that looked impossible to sustain. In the suite of songs and stream-of-egoism that comprised this year’s Come for Me, Cohen flecked the ravening-but-ridiculous narcissism with glimpses of a maturer – but just as funny – comic to come. Read the review
5. TJ & Dave
Sometimes all the showbiz noise falls away, and class – pure comic class – asserts itself. There’s not much hype around Chicago improv duo TJ and Dave, unassuming middle-aged gents delivering character-driven comic plays plucked entirely from thin air. But the craft! The quality! This year’s brief Soho theatre visit found them on blissful form. Read the review
4. John Kearns: The Varnishing Days
Don’t let the tonsure wig and false teeth fool you: there’s nothing niche about John Kearns’ everyday poetry and wistful comic philosophising. It reached its apogee (so far) with this absolute belter of a set about art, fatherhood and Jermaine Jenas’s reflections on an ageing tortoise. Read the review
3. Bill O’Neill: The Amazing Banana Brothers
The production line of alt clowns that gave us first Dr Brown then his protege Natalie Palamides this year brought us Bill O’Neill, a smiling assassin with a killer dark comedy about a sibling circus act. Their trick? Slipping on bananas. But with this twisted, twinkling floorshow, O’Neill didn’t put a foot wrong. Read the review
2. Ahir Shah: Ends
His imminent nuptials prompted a backwards glance this year, as 32-year-old Shah reflected on his grandfather’s migration to the UK in the 1960s. The result was a heart-on-sleeve standup show about “generational sacrifice”, UK multiculturalism and Shah’s own journey in comedy and life. It won the Edinburgh comedy award – and deserved it. Read the review
1. Julia Masli: ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Julia Masli is still insistent that her new show – the buzziest event at this summer’s Edinburgh fringe – is not a comedy. How could it be? It’s a sensitive agony-aunt hour in which the Estonian performer harnesses the power of the crowd to heal people’s woes. It’s also dreamily funny and odd, as our host, dressed in frilly Victorianwear with a golden prosthetic leg where her arm should be, prowls the room seeking problems to solve – and unlikely ways to do so. Surprising, as alive as can be, and weirdly uplifting, it was the year’s most exciting, have-to-be-there comedy moment. Read the review. Brian Logan
Dance
10. Free Your Mind
There was a lot of buzz about this show – a reboot of the Matrix, with added Alan Turing – which marked the opening of Manchester’s Aviva Studios. The highlight was seeing the building’s vast warehouse space get the Olympic opening ceremony-style treatment from director Danny Boyle and dance company Boy Blue. Read the review
9. Mass Effect
Is this the perfect fringe festival show? An immediately accessible, entertaining, transformative hour, with some unvarnished nudity thrown in. Danish company Himherandit Productions set a group of bodies in perpetual motion at Edinburgh’s Summerhall, repeating phrases to a thrumming rhythm, building a crescendo of energy, heat, endorphins and communal spirit. Read the review
8. Pam Tanowitz and David Lang: Song of Songs
What is it about Pam Tanowitz’s dance? There’s something mysterious about it, and yet so logical; it’s not trying particularly to be “beautiful”, and yet has a profound beauty within. Song of Songs at the Barbican was a collaboration with Pulitzer-winning composer David Lang, whose score really brought the movement to life. Read the review
7. Nederlands Dans Theater
A strong triple bill at Sadler’s Wells, London, including Figures in Extinction [1.0], where choreographer Crystal Pite and director Simon McBurney addressed environmental crisis by conjuring up a catalogue of threatened species, briefly blooming into life on stage. Plus, Gabriela Carrizo’s La Ruta, a strikingly cinematic piece of dance theatre set at a bus stop. Read the review
6. Phaedra/Minotaur
This was an opera/dance double bill – seen at the Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh – with an utterly compelling performance by mezzo-soprano Christine Rice as Benjamin Britten’s Phaedra at its centre, but on the dance front the wow factor came from Tommy Franzen literally climbing the walls. Watching Franzen, as Dionysus, silently scale the backdrop and hang suspended was magic. Read the review
5. Breakin’ Convention
The joy of Breakin’ Convention at Sadler’s Wells is not just the individual acts – although there were some great ones this year, from technically awesome ILL-Abilities to Beyoncé faves Les Twins and the old-school Ghetto Funk Collective – but the whole event, a welcoming, feelgood, family-friendly gathering hosted by the indefatigable Jonzi D. Read the review
4. The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady
A wonderful experiment in the fusion of music and movement with the most successful audience participation I’ve ever seen at a dance event. Charles Mingus’s album The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady was always meant to be danced to, and here Clod Ensemble and the Nu Civilisation Orchestra made that happen, big time, at Shoreditch Town Hall. Read the review
3. Benji Reid: Find Your Eyes
A truly original show from Reid, one of the pioneers of hip-hop theatre in the UK, now a photographer, who blended his instincts and talents in a hybrid performance at Manchester Academy for Manchester international festival. Live photography captured the dancers’ images to expressive, poignant effect, with Reid’s own story and struggles skilfully woven into the narrative. Read the review
2. Turn It Out With Tiler Peck & Friends
Tiler Peck is an astonishing dancer, technically and musically, with a dash of showgirl charm. This outing at Sadler’s Wells was a hugely enjoyable showcase not only for Peck’s own talents – most evident in the casual virtuosity of William Forsythe’s Barre Project – but those of dancing friends, including tap dancer Michelle Dorrance and jazzer Jillian Meyers. Read the review
1. Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
So much of dance is in the moment, how the energy in the room takes shape on stage and in the audience, at one particular time. New York’s Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater also performed in London this year, and its vibrant junior company Ailey II toured the UK, but their Edinburgh festival show was one of those nights where everything just came together and sang. A new work, Kyle Abraham’s Are You in Your Feelings, saw the magnificent dancers riffing over a soundtrack of Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu, Drake and Kendrick Lamar, while Revelations – 63 years old and still going strong – showed us something truly soulful. Read the review. Lyndsey Winship
