Critics' Pick: Franco Milazzo's Best of 2023 in Review

What a year! I pulled out my notebook over a hundred times and came away, more often not, with a happy heart. Now that the pandemic is firmly in the rear view mirror, I expected much from theatres big and small with the only restrictions this time around being less social (other than for stone-hearted misanthropes like me) and more to do with budget and imagination. Below is a condensed list of the very best - and worst - that I saw.

THEATRE

There was no shortage of stage action in 2023 and the much of it was above par. Some plays made a welcome comeback and there were West End transfers aplenty (I lapped up Peter Morgan’s Patriots and James Graham’s Dear England). The Old Vic’s spellbinding A Christmas Carol is practically a London institution by now and the charming The Ocean At The End Of The Lane’s made a well-received tour stop in the West End.

The all-female Titus Andronicus at the Globe and gender-bending outlaw tale Cowbois from the RSC were likely too “woke” for some theatregoers but both were remarkably intelligent, incredibly good fun and had standout turns from actor and cabaret artiste Lucy McCormick. 

Play of the year for me was, without a shadow of a doubt, Accidental Death Of An Anarchist. Dario Fo's play debuted in 1970 but is still as fresh and relevant now in the hands of director Daniel Raggett and actor Daniel Rigby. The politics are front and centre - there are frequent allusions to modern miscarriages of justice as well as police tactics which seem intended to frustrate public inquiries - but they never weigh down Rigby’s phenomenal physical performance which sees him verbally run rings around hapless plods while seemingly covering every square inch of the stage. It deservedly won a West End transfer and I sincerely hope it returns in 2024. If one production encapsulated the power of theatre this year, this was it.

Favourite from 2023:  Accidental Death Of An Anarchist

Special mentions: Titus Andronicus, Cowbois, Dear England, Patriots

DANCE

London was awash in 2023 with amazing dance productions. Crazy For You is ostensibly a musical of Gershwin numbers but will be remembered as the show that pushed Charlie Stemp to stratospheric heights. Theatre Re’s The Nature Of Forgetting (part of the final full-length Mime Festival) was an emotive memory play which blended tender physicality and strong storytelling. Visual design through costume and stage design was a high point for many productions: Scottish Ballet’s Coppelia at Sadler’s Wells painted a vivid tableau as did the Royal Ballet’s Woolf Works and Eun-Me Ahn Company’s Dragons. 

The Barbican put on some of the best and worst dance of the year. Trajal Harrell’s Porca Miseria, a four-hour exhibition of indulgent physical waffle, couldn’t have been better named if it tried. On the other hand, Peeping Tom’s Triptych was an exceptionally haunting Lynchian nightmare that grew more and more bonkers as it went on. 

Favourite from 2023: Peeping Tom’s Triptych

Special mentions: Message In A Bottle, Crazy For You, Woolf Works

OPERA

With Sicilian-level negotiation skills, the ENO not only won a reprieve from the Arts Council England and more funding and a few more years in London before it shifts its HQ to Manchester “by 2029”. Something tells me that, like any good opera, there’ll be a few more twists in that tale before the end. 

Breaking its tradition of hosting only English-language works, two of the best shows at the ENO’s Coliseum were handily subtitled. The Mongol Khan was a real spectacle, a spoken opera that involved cadres of dancers, special effects experts, acrobats, costumiers, puppeteers and even some actors. Meanwhile, Symphony Of Sorrowful Songs was prefaced with some words from outgoing chief exec Stuart Murphy: in an excoriating speech, he ominously warned a number of figures including Michael Gove and other ministers that “history is watching you”. When Henryk Górecki’s masterwork eventually did get going, it was a triptych of gloriously unadulterated pathos.

Similarly grim and great was the ENO’s Peter Grimes while Cal McCrystal’s Iolanthe was maximalist panto-like fun all the way. Blue had the most intriguing staging of any production I saw this year and Marina Abramović’s spectacular 7 Deaths Of Maria Callas was everything you would expect from this wonderful ego-on-legs. 

The Royal Opera House was relatively drama-free as an organisation but literally took the p*ss with a stirring Wozzeck and its lovely Barber Of Seville was a cut above. The Arcola’s Grimeborn festival once again turned up some real treats, not least a more authentic feeling Turandot realised by a South East Asian cast.

Favourite of all, though, was the immense Akhnaten. Phelim McDermott has had heaps of plaudits of late for his take on anime classic My Neighbour Totoro but this utter beast of a show beats it in terms of locomotive emotion and stage design. Its comeback to the Coliseum was much-anticipated and brought people back to the opera house in droves. The way it takes the epic source material from Phillip Glass and conjures fresh magic is truly a thing of wonder. 

Favourites from 2023: Akhnaten

Special mention: Iolanthe, Peter Grimes, Symphony Of Sorrowful Songs, The Mongol Khan, The Barber of Seville
 

IMMERSIVE THEATRE

No-one likes to get involved in someone else’s drama - unless we’re talking about immersive theatre. This year, I stepped into a 1970s ski lodge with a yeti on the loose, the most famous boxing match of the last century, the ominous world of George Orwell’s 1984 and a highly unusual dating scenario. We said goodbye to two of London’s biggest shows in The Everywhere Group’s Peaky Blinders:The Rise and Punchdrunk’s The Burnt City while the much-anticipated Arkham Rises disappeared into the night.

It’s appropriate that the least traditional form of drama popped up in some highly unusual places including a cafe at University of Greenwich, under Waterloo station, East London council offices and beneath a church in Bethnal Green. The innovation in this sector is off the scale; even when Midnight Circle Productions leant on famous classics like Frankenstein or The Picture of Dorian Gray, they dug up fresh insights in the text, twisted the plots to their own purpose and found new ways to bring us up close and personal with the characters and their tragic stories.

Three very different productions very much took my fancy in 2023. Phantom Peak is now the biggest immersive experience in London - and not just in terms of square footage: creating eleven new stories every three months as part of a brand new season is hard enough but folding in interesting characters you genuinely enjoy meeting and talking to is something else.

The Batman-themed Monarch Theatre is London's best kept secret, serving up ten courses of world-class wining and dining within a fantastically evocative 360-degree environment featuring projections, magic and dazzling food presentation. Neil Kelso’s Dead On Time evolves the locked room scenario by having us detectives sat on a moving train with the murderer and ten suspects to choose from as we whizz through the English countryside.

Next year, I’m looking forward to seeing the unnamed new shows from Punchdrunk and The Everywhere Group, the long-awaited revival of Alice Underground, the updated War of The Worlds and Monarch Park shows and whatever Phantom Peak serves up next.

Favourites from 2023: Phantom Peak, Monarch Theatre, Dead On Time

Special mentions: Peaky Blinders: The Rise, Rumble In The Jungle, Within Touching Distance, The Burnt City, War of The Worlds

MUSICALS

2023 was the year of the musical, for better - and for worse. Director David Hare dedicated his annual moan to their preponderance (he’s previously railed against box office hits, European directors and “restatements of the bleeding obvious”), the disruptive audience behaviour at Grease, Hamilton and Bat Out Of Hell hit the headlines and Ben Elton proved not once but twice that he shouldn’t be let near a musical (for the sake of those in the pews if no-one else). 

Despite all that, new, revived and retooled shows pulled in hundreds of thousands of punters - and not just for the classics: Broadway hit A Strange Loop was meta and marvellous while the controversial Oklahoma! was both iconoclastic and classy.

Meanwhile, Jamie Lloyd’s Sunset Boulevard in October was a must-see when it debuted in October, the theatrical audacity on a par with the lead performances from Nicole Scherzinger and Rachel Tucker. Its mantelpiece will surely runneth over with awards come the next Oliviers. The “immersive” Cabaret and Guys & Dolls batted their creative staging and cast changes at us and many said “yes please” all over again.

Nothing this year pumped the blood to head, heart and vocal chords like Bat Out Of Hell, an unashamedly loud,proud and full-throated singalong that evolved the rawness of Jim Steinman’s power ballads into something approaching jukebox nirvana. I still can't get over one other show, though. I have no idea quite why it inexplicably flopped on the Great White Way but Groundhog Day broke box office records on its return to the Old Vic in the summer - and for good reason. Andy Karl is sensational as the lechy, tetchy weatherman who relives the same day over and over and Tim Minchin's scintillating songs (redolent with emotional pull and storytelling) are a golden combination. From crown to corns, the show stands tall and proud as the only one this year which readily made me cry. Tell no-one.

Favourites from 2023: Groundhog Day

Special mentions: A Strange Loop, Oklahoma!, Bat Out Of Hell

This article is dedicated to Johnny Fox, Lindsey Berthoud, Aliya Al-Hassan and all the PRs I have spoken to this year (you are truly the unsung heroes of the stage community).

With thanks to Catherine, Carmen, Chris, Erika, Fabrizio, Kon, Mysti, Pete and (most definitely) Ray.

Main Photo credit: Virginia Rota

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