The Best of the Year
Actually, that should be "The Best of What I Saw" because obviously I didn't see everything—and anyway, my own personal preferences are bound to be a major influence. And for this section of the Review of the Year I am looking purely at locally produced work for, as I mentioned before, this is the best indicator of the health of an area's theatre.
First, my Best New Play was undoubtedly the Live Theatre production of Paddy Campbell's Wet House. Campbell is a talent to watch and this was a very mature piece of work, even thought it was his first full-length play.
In another year Live would also have been in the running for Best Revival with Lee Hall's Cooking with Elvis, but 2013 also saw Northern Stage's revival of Dennis Potter's Blue Remembered Hills which was outstanding and an obvious winner.
For the first time in many years I only saw two pantos—at Durham's Gala and the Customs House in South Shields—so to have a Best Panto category would just be wrong but my vote for Best Christmas Show would definitely go to Northern Stage for Susan Mulholland's Tallest Tales from the Furthest Forest, aimed at the under-6s and an absolute joy to watch.
It's always good to see shows which are off-the-wall. They can be hugely successful or embarrassingly bad and I saw a number of the latter during the year but two were really good. Peter Mortimer's The Plughole by Cloud 9 at the Low Lights Tavern in North Shields was the latest in his series of new absurdist plays and was great fun, but the real winner for me was Nassim Soleimanpour's White Rabbit, Red Rabbit at Live Theatre, which was performed each night by a different actor (male or female), writer, poet or comedian who didn't see the script until (s)he was handed it in a sealed envelope on stage. I saw the performance by Shaun Prendergast and found it fascinating and enjoyable, as did others who saw it on different nights with totally different performers.
Cloud 9 deserves a special mention for two reasons, its development of the Low Lights Tavern on the Fish Quay in North Shields as a (very!) small-scale theatre venue and, in spite of losing its Ars Council funding in 2010, continuing to present high quality professional theatre by local writers, which this year meant two plays by Peter Mortimer, Dick Currran's Company and Paul Buie's Influence.
And my Best Male Actor? This goes to Joe Caffrey for his performances in Wet House and Cooking with Elvis at Live, two real tours de force.
I am in two minds about the Best Female Actor. Having thought long and hard I am still unable to separate Tilly Gaunt and Joanna Holden in Blue Remembered Hills at Northern Stage, so the award goes to both equally.