2014 Year in Review: Verity Wilde's Best and Worst of Theatre

I've seen a lot of shows in 2014 - and I'm not done yet - but there are a couple of evenings that really stand out for me for a variety of reasons.

I CAN'T SING!

I saw this in previews after hearing all the stories that it was going to be a disaster and it was by no means the stinker that I had been led to expect. They needed to fix the ending - Simon's an alien who flies off in a space ship?! - but when you've spend that much money on a flying saucer to float down from the Palladium roof, I suppose you are going to try and stick with it come hell or high water. The performances were great - Simon Lipkin makes any show better and the Jedward-esque number was a work of genius - but I wasn't surprised it closed quickly. Leaving the show, my friend and I couldn't work out who its audience would be - there were no X Factor stars in it or X factor winners' songs so it wouldn't necessarily get the X Factor viewers in; and really it was satirising the show and its tropes - and people who want to see that sort of thing probably aren't going to buy tickets to something billed as "The X Factor musical" because they don't like the X Factor! And so it proved as the show shut up shop rapidly despite the positive reviews. It deserved a longer life than Viva Forever - which was truly a stinker. I saw I Can't Sing! again before it finished - and appreciated the line changes to reflect its rapid departure!

BLITHE SPIRIT

As someone who grew up watching Bedknobs and Broomsticks every third Saturday - and who spent a lot of afternoons napping to Murder, She Wrote when I was a breakfast newsreader, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to see Angela Lansbury on stage in the flesh. She was brilliant, the rest of the cast were excellent and the production was great. I saw the last West End revival with Penelope Keith and I do think Blithe Spirit may be my favourite Noel Coward play - although Private Lives is right up there after last year's production with Toby Stephens and Anna Chancellor. Blithe Spirit was certainly by far the best Noel Coward revival of the three I saw in 2014.

MISS SAIGON Anniversary Gala

For amazing nights in a theatre, the 25th anniversary gala night at Miss Saigon is right up there with the best I've had. Not only is the revival excellent, but the special encore blew my mind. I've been a massive fan of Lea Salonga since I first watched Aladdin and heard her sing. I totally embarrassed myself by bursting into tears the moment she appeared on stage in that hat - I'm not even sure I can blame it on the free champagne! I was too young to see the original cast first time around - and it was amazing to see them in the flesh and still sounding great and the massed ranks of the alumni was fairly impressive. I was pleased to see the revival get a slot on this year's Royal Variety - but I'm not sure that the TV performance did the show justice.

EVERY LAST TRICK at Royal and Derngate

Royal and Derngate is my local theatre and they've done some excellent productions in their Made In Northampton programme this year - like A Tale of Two Cities and Regeneration - but my favourite was Every Last Trick - another collaboration with clowning maestros Spymonkey, this time with Told By An Idiot as well. Their reworking of Feydeau's farce was absurdly bonkers and screamingly funny. I'm hoping to get to see Spymonkey's Christmas show Mrs Hudson's Christmas Corker at Wilton's Music Hall - I've been hearing really good things - and I've still got my fingers crossed that they may return to Royal and Derngate next year.

So there you have it - four of my theatre highlights of 2014. I had trouble narrowing it down - David Tennant's Richard II, Mischief Theatre's Play That Goes Wrong and Lindsay Lohan's West End Debut nearly made the list (Lindsay for a different reason to the others...) but I thought I'd leave you wanting more. Which is more than you could say about Lindsay Lohan in Speed the Plow...

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