Theatre
10. Please Right Back
This dark, psychedelic story of childhood adventure and estrangement was staged by the company 1927 which is known for using a whimsical blend of forms. It incorporated handcrafted animation with live performances, including song, dance and surrealist clowning, with bewitching results. At Southbank Centre, London, until 5 January. Read the review
9. Pinocchio
A wondrous musical adaptation at the Watermill of Michael Morpurgo’s take on the mendacious wooden marionette who strives to become human. From the very first moment, it cast a spell with gorgeous puppetry and choreography. The script and staging burst with imagination and the story was brought to life anew. Utter magic. Until 5 January. Read the review
8. Punch
James Graham is fast becoming the pre-eminent playwright of his generation and he proved his virtuosity yet again with this terrifically staged, real-life story of a teenager who killed a man with a single blow. It is about the senseless loss of life but contains redemption and compassion too. Nottingham Playhouse’s production transfers to the Young Vic in London in March. Read the review
7. Love Beyond
Staged at the Edinburgh fringe with d/Deaf writer-actor Ramesh Meyyappan as its lead, this exquisitely told, melancholic drama concerned a man in the throes of dementia. Full of charismatic physicality, it blended the real with the hallucinatory, and was saturated with emotion. Deeply moving and original theatre about life, love and memory. Read the review
6. Oedipus
Writer-director Robert Icke turned this ancient Greek tragedy into a tightly sprung, gasp-inducing, modern-day political tale of truth and lies. The star casting of Mark Strong, as the high-minded politician awaiting victory on election night, along with Lesley Manville as Jocasta, elevated it into the realm of the sublime. At Wyndham’s, London, until 4 January. Read the review
5. Hadestown
Anaïs Mitchell’s jazz- and folk-infused odyssey into the underworld brought its great big beating heart from Broadway to the West End. Retelling the doomed love story of Eurydice and Orpheus, there was one stupendous song and set-piece after another, with powerhouse performances. It has truly earned its cult status. Now booking to September at the Lyric. Read the review
4. Rewind
This hour-long devised show by Ephemeral Ensemble at London’s New Diorama was a polyphonic whirlwind telling the story of a disappeared young protester in South America, as well as her exhumation by a forensic team. It was beautiful, grief-soaked and harrowing in equal measure, and the stunning use of sound, puppets and movement left its mark long after its end. Read the review
3. The Lonely Londoners
Sam Selvon’s sprawling novel about a posse of Windrush arrivals who are met by racial hostility in their new home does not readily lend itself to dramatisation. So the achievement of this intense, expressionist production at Jermyn Street theatre, adapted by Roy Williams, was all the greater: sultry song combined with searing performances and sensational choreography. No wonder it has found a second life at the Kiln in 2025. Read the review
2. The Picture of Dorian Gray
Sarah Snook, best known for her role as Shiv Roy in Succession, dazzled in this experimental solo vehicle, breathtakingly playing all 26 characters in Oscar Wilde’s Faustian story. The show at Theatre Royal Haymarket, directed by Kip Williams, employed digital technology in daring ways. Snook swaggered through the high-wire enterprise to show us what she is made of. Read the review
1. The Years
This magnetic and ingenious adaptation of Annie Ernaux’s book about the life of a Frenchwoman, and the gyrations of her nation’s history across this biographical span, was every bit as luminous, profound and drily witty as the memoir by the Nobel prize-winning author – but with added playfulness and music. Five actors (including Romola Garai and Gina McKee) shared the part of the lead character though the ages, each as magnificent as the next. It combined seismic world events with teen sexual awakening, love, compromise and motherhood. A scene in which an illegal abortion was evoked led some audience members to faint but this was essential, transformative theatre. Joyfully, for those who missed it, the Almeida production transfers to the West End in late January. Read the review
***
Comedy
10. Furiozo: Man Looking for Trouble
Piotr Sikora’s clown show – bullet-headed hooligan meets audience-friendly mime – debuted in 2023, but broke out this year, with talk-of-the-town Melbourne, Edinburgh and London runs. Now terrifying, now tender, this gun-totin’, jail-breakin’, drug-takin’ toxic-masculinity caper showcased a thrilling new arrival on the booming clown scene. At Wardrobe theatre, Bristol, in February. Read the review
9. Marie Faustin: Sorry I’m Late
Jokes are nice, but sometimes you just have to defer to star quality. And that’s just what you got at US standup Faustin’s London gig this year, with a beat-that support set from Sydnee Washington followed by a happy-to-oblige hour from Faustin herself. The material was good … but the personality? Hard to remember the last time a comic made the stage so gloriously their own. Read the review
8. Garry Starr: Classic Penguins
Add it to the ranks of it-could-only-happen-here Edinburgh fringe comedy shows: Garry Starr (AKA Damien Warren-Smith) staging every single Penguin Classic novel in 60 minutes flat. Visual punchline after sublime visual punchline ensued in an hour matched for laughs by Starr’s kids show, Monkeys Everywhere, elsewhere on the fringe. Read the review
7. Kemah Bob: Miss Fortunate
It was a long time coming, this first solo hour by the UK-based Texan, a TV regular and impresario behind the FOC It Up! comedy club. And it was worth the wait: a shaggy-dog account of a Thailand holiday intended to relieve Bob’s mental distress, but which ended up (think people trafficking, drug abuse and sex work) wildly intensifying it. Touring until April. Read the review
6. Natalie Palamides: Weer
The question: could the LA export possibly live up to her 2018 hit turned Netflix special, Nate? The answer: flamboyantly, with an unlike-anything-else solo 90s romcom starring either half of Palamides’ body as the two star-crossed lovers. It was a carefree mess and a tour de force. Once seen, never forgotten. Read the review
5. Rhod Gilbert and the Giant Grapefruit
Cancer comedy is a tightrope, always at risk of piety or gloom where laughter ought to be. No such danger here, with a barnstorming set by the Welshman on his cancer journey. Yes, the joy was multiplied by Gilbert’s recent all-clear and patent happiness to be alive. But the comedy craft and big-hitting gags played their part too in a show that tours throughout 2025. Read the review
4. Rose Matafeo: On and On and On
Years after she won the Edinburgh comedy award, then graduated to TV stardom via Starstruck, what had Rose Matafeo left to prove? Cue a career-best standup show from the New Zealander, unstintingly candid, intelligent and self-lacerating about her neuroses, and about the terrors of dating and singledom in one’s 30s. Read the review
3. Jordan Brookes: Fontanelle
Ex-Edinburgh comedy award champ Brookes could no more produce a formulaic show than Michael McIntyre an experimental one. Even then, no one expected a musical. But that (sort of) is what Brookes delivered with Fontanelle, a teasing inquiry into masculinity disguised as a fractured song-and-dance show about the sinking of the Titanic. At Soho theatre, London, from February. Read the review
2. Catherine Bohart: Again, With Feelings
By your mid-30s, you expect your life to be coming together, right? If that’s not quite where Irish comic Bohart finds herself, well, at least she’s got standup where she wants it. With this for-the-ages set about her tumbledown early middle-age, Bohart refined her gossipy, high-strung and wisecracking autobiographical comedy to a fine art. Touring until March. Read the review
1. One-Man Musical by Flo & Joan
It started life as a fringe wheeze, a chance for musical comedy sisters Flo & Joan (AKA Rosie and Nicola Dempsey) to turn their hands to writing, and cede their place in the spotlight. It turned into an extraordinary solo musical that mixes pastiche and satire with a weirdly profound portrait of (lawyers, avert your eyes) king of the “musicools”, Andrew Lloyd Webber. Seen in Edinburgh, it was terrific. Seen later this year at Soho theatre, it was becoming a masterpiece, musically on point, lyrically spry, touching on the plight of the out-of-his-time artist – and lit up by a body-and-soul performance by George Fouracres as the vainglorious, floundering ALW. At Underbelly Boulevard, London, from January. Read the review
***
Dance
10. Akram Khan: Gigenis
A return to Akram Khan’s roots in classical Indian dance, and a return to the stage for Khan himself – as compelling as ever – but this time sharing it with expert performers in different dance forms (bharatanatyam, Odissi and Kutiyattam). Even if the meaning was sometimes elusive, the quality of the performance at Sadler’s Wells was sky high. Great musicians, too. Read the review
9. Stopgap: Lived Fiction
A truly accessible touring show from the company of disabled, non-disabled and neurodivergent dancers, which accommodated every audience member and upended any tacit ideas around whose experience takes priority. “We don’t give a damn about being invited to the table,” one of the dancers said. “We’re inviting you to ours instead.” Read the review
8. Lovísa Ósk Gunnarsdóttir: When the Bleeding Stops
One of the year’s most unexpectedly joyful performances, from Icelandic dancer Lovísa Ósk Gunnarsdóttir. An autobiographical story finding parallels in the impact of career-ending injury and the advent of menopause, this show at the Place in London was a rediscovery of the pure, nourishing pleasure of moving to music, and ended in a mass dance-along. Read the review
7. London City Ballet: Resurgence
Rising from the ashes, London City Ballet was revived this year after lying dormant for nearly 30 years. Getting it back on its feet is an impressive enough feat from artistic director Christopher Marney, and the touring programme was an intriguing mix of old and new, unearthing a little-seen Kenneth MacMillan quartet, Ballade, from 1972. Read the review
6. Ockham’s Razor: Tess
A surprisingly warm adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s depressing tale of Tess of the D’Urbervilles. This was contemporary circus company Ockham’s Razor’s first attempt at a literary narrative and the show proved they could express character through acrobatic skill and atmospheric mood thanks to Aideen Malone’s lighting and a soundtrack by Holly Khan. Touring from February. Read the review
5. Michael Keegan-Dolan/Teaċ Daṁsa: Nobodaddy
The world created by Irish choreographer Michael Keegan-Dolan can be at once quotidian and wildly surreal, but at its core is a deep connection between music, dance and community. At Sadler’s Wells, American folk singer Sam Amidon was in the middle of the fray, spurring movement that was really something to relish. Read the feature
4. Shechter II: From England With Love
Hofesh Shechter’s critical eye and often pessimistic view of humanity benefited here from having a tight focus: England – the Israeli choreographer’s adopted home. A work both humorous and horrified about Albion’s chequered history, this touring show had some incredible dancing from Shechter II, the younger offshoot of his main company. Read the review
3. Rendez-Vous Dance: What Songs May Do
This duet was a trio, really, for two dancers and the mighty voice of Nina Simone, which soundtracked the ups and downs of a relationship, filling out all the grey areas between “He loves me” and “He loves me not”. A sensitively crafted and danced hour at the Edinburgh fringe from choreographer Mathieu Geffré. Read the review
2. Aakash Odedra: Songs of the Bulbul
A piece of dance that unashamedly embodied light and joy, with its surging, exultant soundtrack by film composer Rushil Ranjan. Always a beautiful performer (specialising in the Indian classical form kathak), Aakash Odedra has stepped up a notch in recent years. Staged at the Edinburgh international festival, Songs of the Bulbul offered simple pleasure and a sense of hope. On tour in 2025. Read the review
1. Abby Z and the New Utility: Radioactive Practice
The highlight of this year’s Dance Umbrella festival, from New York choreographer Abby Zbikowski, had something I’d never seen before: dancers egging each other on, shouting “You got this!” or “I see you!” from the sidelines as muscles were straining. English modesty prevented the audience from joining in (which they were allowed to do), but the interaction instantly heated up the room and tore away the sheen of effortlessness that is dance’s default. With wildly athletic moves taken from sports, the gym, street dance and street life, it was an exhaustingly impressive display of skill, but also a study in the nature of work, effort, motivation and community. Read the review
