Putting this list together this year was unbelievably difficult - I began this list with 24 names, and I whittled it down to 13 (which for a top ten isn't massively helpful...)
So, I'm gonna talk about the three that just missed out on my top 10, and then my top 10, because we've had some pretty outstanding performances this year and its been thrilling to be able to get to watch them all.
Jonathan Bailey as John in Cock
Jonathan Bailey on stage is always a treat, and for him to be leading a new Marianne Elliott production was a double delight.
He doesn't leave the stage for the entire show, and carries it squarely on his shoulders. The play is pretty intense (whilst also being suitably hilarious) and Bailey goes on quite a journey through it, giving him the chance to flex every acting muscle he has - proving that he is such a wonderful talented presence on stage.
Bertie Carvel as Donald Trump in The 47th
It's a performance I couldn't imagine before seeing it, and once you saw Carvel come on stage as The Donald, you forget within seconds he was playing a character.
Bertie Carvel's performance was grotesque, hysterical, disgraceful and you couldn't take your eyes off him - whilst the play for sure had its problems, you couldn't really fault the performances.
Kerry Ellis as Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes
Anything Goes saved my life last year - there's essentially no other way to put it.
A piece of heaven that will stay with me forever entered the UK theatre scene for the summer and I got to live in this perfect cocktail of joy for 16 weeks.
What I hadn't anticipated was the production returning to my life for 5 months this year, and for the woman who made me fall in love with musicals making her triumphant return to theatre by leading the show as Reno Sweeney.
If you know me at all, you know how much I love Kerry Ellis, but getting to see her play this part was just unbelievable.
I've never seen her do anything like this, and I don't think I breathed the first time I saw her lead that tap number.
Ultimately, the thing that made this performance so wonderful is the fact that she was having the absolute time of her life. Reno in this production is HARDCORE, but every single time I saw Kerry play her, she was just having an absolute ball.
More of this please - may this be Ellis' great return to the West End stage and we continue to mount productions around her.
More of this please - may this be Ellis' great return to the West End stage and we continue to mount productions around her.
Top 10 performances of the year
10. Patrick Vaill as Jud Fry in Oklahoma!
Look, Sexy Oklahoma was great fun - mainly to watch the old people in the audience having an absolutely horrendous time at Daniel Fish's extraordinary reinvention of a classic.
Mainly though, it was worth watching for the absolute marvel that is Patrick Vaill as Jud Fry.
You're normally led to believe Jud is the villain in Oklahoma, but the way Vaill portrays this broken shell of a man in the production is nothing short of revolutionary. I was team Jud from the get go, willing things to get better for him. His rendition of Lonely Room is heartbreaking, and then...well you know.
Thankfully, he's back for the West End transfer from February, and I cannot emphasise how much you have to see this man's performance.
He's a sensation - don't miss it.
He's a sensation - don't miss it.
9. Alex Young as The Bakers Wife in Into The Woods
With her luminous performance as The Baker's Wife, Alex Young secures her place alongside Imelda Staunton, Joanna Riding and Rosalie Craig as one of our greatest interpreters of Sondheim's material.
The Baker's Wife is one of the greatest roles in musical theatre for a woman - it has such depth in both humour and drama, her material is hysterical and heart-breaking and she's the emotional heart of the show. I truly believe if you nail The Baker's Wife, you can walk away with Into The Woods and steal the show from The Witch and The Baker, and that's exactly what Alex did.
I cannot wait to see what else is in Alex's future in terms of Sondheim roles - we are all going to die when she gets round to playing Sally Durant Plummer and Desiree Armfeldt.
8. John Heffernan as Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing
If John Heffernan isn't remembered when we get round to Olivier's next year, I will kick up such a fuss the likes of which you have never seen.
Heffernan was just having so much bloody fun in Much Ado and as a result, so was the entire audience watching him. The scene with the gelato (if you know, you know) was so funny I seriously thought I was going to wet myself.
He's just an absolute joy - there was real warmth to his Benedick and to achieve that in a role that largely can just be played as a blistering fool was just terrific to get to see (twice!)
7. Katie Brayben as Tammy Faye Bakker in Tammy Faye
I have many, many problems with the musical Tammy Faye. The entirety of Act 2 needs to essentially be thrown out and start again, and the lyrics are woefully inadequate almost the entire way through, but it does have one massive positive going for it - the barnstorming central performance by Katie Brayben.
Look, we know Brayben is a sensation - she won an Olivier for her performance as Carole King in Beautiful, and I'd put money on the fact that she's probably secured her second with her portrayal of Tammy Faye Bakker.
It's sort of everything you can hope for in a performance - confident but vulnerable, brassy but reserved, and with a voice like so few others.
Brayben is stunning in this role, with her performance of the 11 o'clock number If You Came To See Me Cry being something that will stay with me for a long time. I just couldn't help thinking if she was this brilliant with the material she as given, imagine what she'd have been like with material that matched her capabilities...
6. Rafe Spall as Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird
I am one of the four people on the planet who hasn't ready To Kill A Mockingbird, so I got to go in to this remarkable play blind, which I'm really thankful for.
Rafe Spall was a complete revelation for me in this. I knew him to be a good actor, but I'd never seen him really soar in anything before, and that I saw him as Atticus Finch, and he's simply sensational.
The driving force of the whole play, the focus point, and my god what a powerful performance. It's been 8 months since I saw it and I still think about moments of his performances and the raw honesty in which he did it.
Stunning work, one of the highlights of the year.
5. Charlie Stemp as Bobby Child in Crazy For You
Oh Charlie Stemp, you wonderful, wonderful man.
Half A Sixpence at Chichester launched him to stardom with it's transfer to the West End, and made him a leading man.
Crazy For You at Chichester has cemented him as a star, and it's West End transfer will only strengthen this.
Stemp is the real deal, although this was the first time I saw him as a true triple threat. We knew he could dance, we knew he could sing, but he radiates showmanship throughout this joyous three hour show. He's the lynchpin and he does it with ease: charming, vulnerable, brassy and brash, he's going to take London by storm and walk away with all the awards - London is incredibly lucky to have this coming in.
4. Mark Rylance as Rooster in Jerusalem
Well, it's on my top ten performances a decade later than everyone elses (!) but I finally got to see the incredible Mark Rylance in Jerusalem this year.
There's sort of not much to say that hasn't been said but it truly is a performance for the ages, and all of the superlatives are worth it. It's a mammoth 3 and a half hours for Rooster, and it's a remarkably grotesque look at a character that we all know someone like...
It's also the kind of role he can never really age out of so I'll see you for round three in 2032.
3. Juliet Stevenson as Ruth Wolff in The Doctor
Remarkably, I've never seen Juliet Stevenson on stage before this year, but good lord was it worth the wait.
Her performance in The Doctor is one of those performances that you don't really understand how she does it, or where she even began to put it together. She's mesmerising to watch on stage, and is the glue that holds the whole thing together. You're rooting for her at the beginning, but like any flawed human she makes mistakes along the way and you are tested to your absolute moral limit, and that's down to Stevenson's superb portrayal.
2. Miri Mesika as Dina in The Band's Visit
Miri Mesika as Dina is the musical performance of the year and I will debate anyone who says different - in fact, its one of the musical performances of the decade.
What Mesika did on stage at the Donmar is the definition of a masterclass. She commands the stage in the smallest details and is utterly mesmerising to watch. The way in which her voice moves through David Yazbeck's sensational score is a marvel. In particular, her performance of Omar Sharif is like a film in four minutes. Mesika places the audience under her spell and was unforgettable.
It's such a specific performance that says so little, yet means so much. If you saw it, you know, if you didn't you REALLY missed out.
1. Jodie Comer as Tessa in Prima Facie
I'd be surprised if this isn't at the top of everyone's 'best performance' list this year to be honest.
The superlatives for Jodie Comer in this show were ridiculous, but in this rare case she deserves every single one of them.
It's a prime example of 'leaving it all on the stage.' A one-woman show, for an hour and forty minutes, of a subject matter that is so utterly relentless is no mean feat, and Comer attacks it head on. She is dynamic and devastating -she leaves everything on that stage and more. It's quite simply one of the best performances I've ever seen on stage (and it is STAGGERING it is her stage debut.)
An instant sell-out, with a Broadway run for 2023 planned, and the NT Live screening SAVED Event Cinema and made it the most watched event cinema in history (grossing more than 3.5 million at the Box Office) - occasionally, the performance matches the hype: this was one of those times.
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