My Theatre Highlights 2017

The Goat by Edward Albee at Haymarket Theatre London

By brilliantly using the audience’s discomfiture with bestiality to explore the ambiguity between comedy and tragedy the play forces us to examine ourselves and our own set of values, moral and otherwise.

Desire under the Elms by Eugene O’Neill at Crucible Theatre Sheffield

Nature dominates the visual and aural aspects of this magnificent production of a towering, craggy masterpiece of 20th century drama.

Tribes by Nina Raine at Gate Theatre Dublin

A play about deafness and hence the nature and problems of communication develops into a much broader exploration of identity and community.

The Suppliant Women by Aeschylus at Royal Exchange Theatre Manchester

The ritualistic approach through movement, dancing, vocalisation and music adds to the power and contemporary resonance of Greek drama

The Father by Florian Zeller at Coliseum Theatre Oldham

Experiencing the world as perceived by a dementia sufferer induces an involvement of the audience in his fate which a conventional, linear exposition of his condition could never have matched.