2014 Year in Review: Gary Naylor's Best and Worst of Theatre

2014 was another year that underlined how magnificently theatre serves London. The quality, diversity and professionalism of shows continue to amaze me - and the ticket prices continue to worry me. The West End's pricing structure seems geared to tourists (often international) while the fringe seems so cheap that one wonders how anyone is getting paid. But I'm not sure I can do much about that - theatre is what it is (and always has been), and what it is is a joy to behold. So here are some of my highlights of the last twelve months.

In February, The Almeida's 1984 brought a terrifying Room 101 to Islington - and later, to the West End. That terrible warning delivered with such style succeeded in Theatreland, but less fortunate was the excellent X-Factor musical, I Can't Sing, which opened, and closed, in a blaze of publicity. It was, perhaps, too parochial a show to fill the vast London Palladium night after night, for all its starry pedigree and strong performances. The much inferior Made In Dagenham is currently still running at The Adelphi - but (I understand) discounting tickets. The right formula for West End Musicals seems as elusive as ever.

I was less enamoured of The Almeida's other big transfer to the West End, the slightly irritating King Charles III, much preferring Hilary Mantel's double header at the Aldwych, Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies. And if the laughs in those two productions were of the darkest hue, they were of the brightest in Sell A Door's tremendously entertaining touring production of Avenue Q and in the equally joyous Ushers, a hit at the unpredictable Charing Cross Theatre. Another very young cast excelled in the achingly up to date The Words I Should Have Said To Pheobe Lewis which is worthy of a much larger venue and might get one in 2015.

A number of cabarets showed off some gifted performers drawing on classic material. The always impressive Union Theatre staged The World Goes Round - The Songs Of Kander And Ebb, sung beautifully without amplification, up close and personal. Another show that concentrated on celebrated songwriters was A Spoonful Of Sherman, delightfully raiding a catalogue of clever hits that stretches back three generations. There was a greater range of material in The Great British Musicals - In Concert, a show that convinced me that us Brits could hold our own with Broadway's finest. And as for Broadway? Well, Seth Rudetsky's Deconstructing Broadway was the single most informative and hilarious show of the year - he's back in 2015, so don't let the musical theatre creatives buy up all the seats this time round!

Before panto swamped us (for better or worse), Autumn brought forth some very strong productions. Theatre503 continued their run of success with the electrifying Land Of Our Fathers, transforming the basement of the Trafalgar Studios into a coal mine. Not far from there, another new play, Long Story Short, surfed the zeitgeist with wit and no little measure of insight. The season's standouts were, coincidentally, two productions of the same classic, both brimming with fulfilled ambition: Sweeney Todd at the already closed Twickenham Theatre and Sweeney Todd at Harrington Pie and Mash Shop, the best site specific work in another year in which many unlikely destinations were transformed with great skill and imagination into performance spaces. James Franco even came to see this South London Sweeney - followed, a week later, by Stephen Sondheim himself (see photo). Yes - Sondheim in Tooting!

With Cans and Streaming addressing serious issues with verve and a fully realised theatricality but very much for an adult audience, it was an absolute delight to visit Chickenshed, one of my favourite venues, for their revival, ten years on, of their slice of London Life, Alice On The Underground, aimed primarily at teens. There probably aren't enough plays about life as it is lived right here, right now, so it's always pleasing to see a company deal so directly with their own world.

But worlds are very much manufactured once the pantos roll into town. Once again, the Charles Court Opera Company married a madcap comic sensibility to sensational voices in their annual panto, this time venturing out West with Billy The Kid. There's a few more pantos to come for me and I could almost review them here, as the whole point of the genre is to give us what we expect, and, at Christmas, why not?

Top Three Shows of 2014

SWEENEY TODD, Harrington's Pie and Mash Shop - the transformative power of theatre writ large in a small space

SETH RUDETSKY'S DECONSTRUCTING BROADWAY, Leicester Square Theatre - funny, clever, informative, warm and oh so theatrical!

SWEENEY TODD, Twickenham Theatre - electrifying performances so close the actors could shave you.

Not The Top Three Shows of 2014

ENDURING SONG, Southwark Playhouse - too long, too loud, too much.

SHANG-A-LANG, King's Head Theatre - coarse and witless.

EAST IS EAST, Trafalgar Studios - unpleasant and unnecessary.

What to expect in 2015? The previews will soon pop up here and elsewhere, but this look back at 2014 has proved one old truth yet again - we can only expect the unexpected.

(My thanks to all the actors, creatives and PRs whose talent and hard work have made all these shows possible - Merry Christmas, one and all.)

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