Top 5 Shows of 2021

 Top 5 Shows of 2021

In any normal year, I'd be beginning to compile my usual top 10 shows and performances of the year. With performances I think I'll still be doing that, as I've got so many brilliant ones that need highlighting, but I thought I'd do my top 10 shows a little different to normal.

What I've decided to go with is the following:
1. Top 5 Shows of 2021

2. Top 10 Performances of 2021

3. 2021: The Year We Came Back Home

I need to talk about a lot of 2021, and the various highs (and looming lows) and there's too much of it to just have it in the top 10 shows as normal, so it's gonna be split out. It was really hard getting a list of 10 shows, so I went down to 5, and will talk about the year as a whole separately.

So, the top 5 shows in 2021 look like this for me:

5. My Son's A Queer But What Can You Do @ Turbine Theatre

Gosh, this show truly did hit me right in the feels!

It's incredibly brave to put your life onstage and...star in it yourself. But that's exactly what Rob Madge did. They put themselves and their family on stage and told us their life story...

I can't remember the last time I cried as much as I cried at this show to be honest. About halfway through it just hit me, and I could not stop sobbing (like, there were times I actually couldnt see I was crying so much). 

It was also hugely moving that Rob's parents were also in the audience (I was at the final show). Seeing Rob's parents watch how they accepted their child for who they are, never questioning it and never trying to change them, was just...a bit too much for me to handle!

Cracking songs, sensational costumes (honestly the final Disney Parade and the costume changes are...insane), and all of the nostalgia of any kid who grew up a little bit different and was scared of how the world would accept them.

I so hope it comes back - everyone truly needs to see this show!

4. Operation Mincemeat @ Southwark Playhouse

Well, I'll say one thing - the future of musical theatre is in spectacularly safe hands if SpitLip's sensational Operation Mincemeat is anything to go by!

I've had friends bang on about this show for ages, and it took me too long to get on the hype train. But the 2 and a half hours I spent at Southwark Playhouse on a Tuesday afternoon in August was one of my favourites of the year. 

An unbelievably hard working cast, multi-roling like nobody's business, with one of the catchiest scores for years. 

It's back in Jan and Feb, but this is only the beginning. Operation Mincemeat will be a West End sensation before we know it and I cannot wait to be a hardcore fan of this incredible piece. 

3. South Pacific @ Chichester Festival Theatre

No year is complete without the annual pilgrimage to Chichester to see the summer musical. When 2020 denied us of it I was furious, but naturally I got myself rebooked to see South Pacific when it was revived this summer. 

The production is everything I love in a show: a no expense spared glitzy revival of a bonafide classic, with a sensational cast delivering the material at its fullest potential. 

Getting to see Gina Beck and Julian Ovenden deliver some of Rodgers and Hammerstein's most glorious music was a real treat on a Saturday afternoon (like, I'll never recover from Julian singing This Nearly Was Mine). 

It's touring next year, with a summer season at Sadlers Wells (where both of it's leads will again star as Nellie and Emile) and I cannot insist how much you must see it (I'm already booked for the first preview and will be booking more than one visit). 

A perfect revival. 

2. Cabaret @ Kit Kat Klub

To revive a musical that is as iconic as Cabaret is, and has such an iconic look (in both the Sam Mendes and Rufus Norris productions) is a brave move. 

What Rebecca Frecknall needed to do was to be bold, be different, but be as iconic as what has come before. 

By God has she managed it. 

From the moment you walk into the Kit Kat Klub, you're immersed in the world is 1930s Berlin in a way I've never experienced before. 

A fully transformed auditorium creates a truly unique theatrical experience, that I was not fully ready for. 

It is an event, not just a musical. 

Add on to that actors, singers and dancers at the top of their game, delivering material that is proven to be some of the best ever written, and you have a winner. 

There's been outcry at the ticket prices for Cabaret, and honestly I do agree with it. I paid £75 for a stalls seat for the first preview and that seat is now £250... That's not dynamic pricing, that's just creating a show rich people can see... (I'll discuss this more in my post about 2021 as a whole). 

If you can get in at a reasonable price, please go. 

It's queer, it's dark, it's sexy, it's angry, it's gritty, and it's got a leading lady who is screaming her head off 8 shows a week and giving one of the best stage performances I've seen in a really long time...

1. Anything Goes @ Barbican Theatre

This is not a surprise if you are even remotely following what I've been up to this year!

In short, Anything Goes saved me in 2021. 

I found a pocket of happy escapism that I could keep returning to whenever my anxiety and depression went...haywire. A tap dancing woman was waiting at the Barbican and I could lose myself in unadulterated joy for 3 hours. 

It never got old. Every single joke lands. Every single cast member was brilliant. Every single routine was...other-worldly (there is not a better 30 minutes in musical theatre than the end of Act 1 into the top of Act 2). 

I saw it 6 times in 15 weeks. And I stood up midshow twice every time. 

If you asked me to describe happiness in one musical, it would be this. 

It's back in 2022, on a UK tour and then a summer back at the Barbican.

Go, take everyone you know, and fall in love with musical comedy all over again ❤️

Well there you have it. 

The best new productions I saw in 2021. 

I'll talk about the year as a whole in my roundup of the year but these were the real highpoints for me!

🖤