Gary Naylor - Page 22

Antony McDonald's production of Gerald Barry's hurtling dash through Wonderland and behind the Looking Glass is a delight from start to finish - or it will be for some.

Persona transfers somewhat uneasily from screen to stage in Paul Schoolman's new adaptation, but retains its intellectual heft and eerily subversive quality.

This is an Vanya for 2020 that loses nothing in Conor McPherson's sublime update.

Daniel Ward's autobiographical tale, told as gig theatre, has plenty to say and says it well - we would be wise to listen.

This no frills Twelfth Night rattles through Shakey's comedy getting laughs along the way, but includes some artistic decisions that didn't quite land as clearly as they were, perhaps, intended to.

Jason Kravits brings his big voice and madcap improv skills to London's leading cabaret room and the result is just what January needs.

Once shows all its crowdpleasing credentials in this new touring production with a tremendous cast doing full justice to its score and carrying a somewhat corny plot to a standing ovation curtain.

The Union Theatre's Essential Classics season kicks off with Phil Willmott's updating of a classic with much to say about England in 2020.

Richard Eyre's production gets yet another run out 25 years on, but it's so beautiful and brilliantly sung, no further justification is required.

BWW Reviewer Gary Naylor picks his 2019 highlights

Cinderella delivers a true family pantomime that mixes spectacular sets and costumes with plenty of laughs in a show that doesn't push back any boundaries, but delivers what its audience wants at Christmas.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane offers a spectacular theatrical experience, but may leave some viewers cold with its whimsy and unwillingness to explore human relationships in depth.

Sasha Regan revisits her 2015 production of the 1996 musical to deliver a splendid show for Christmas, with a relevance and harder edge that was missing a little four long years ago.

Two years on, Otello is revived in all its austere majesty, albeit a majesty that can be demanding to watch across a three hours running time.

Ravens: Spassky vs Fischer takes us to Iceland in 1974 for the World Chess Championship, a clash between two very different men and two very different systems but with much that is not so different to the politics of today.

This production pares back Chekhov's original text and foregrounds key themes with just a hint that Vanya even has something to say about the key political issue of the day.

Sam Ra's updating of Anthony Shaffer's much produced and adapted Sleuth takes it into the 21st century without really adding much save some difficulties that are not fully resolved.

Scrooge, the ghosts and a very Tiny Tim just an arm's length away in a fine adaptation of Dickens' timeless tale.

Hunger, adapted from controversial Norwegian, Knut Hamsun's, early career novel, brings us a man alienated from an uncaring world - as much a fixture on the fringes of our city some 130 years since the book was published.

David McVicar's compelling new production of Benjamin Britten's last opera is an extraordinary tour-de-force that takes you inside a troubled mind and leaves you as ill-at-ease as you might expect, but strangely uplifted too, the beauty present in even a dying world underlined and celebrated.