I managed to pack in more than 70 theatre visits this year and saw some cracking plays. And some that didn't quite ignite.

My favourite plays of 2024

(In no particular order - links through to written or video reviews):

Oedipus, Wyndhams Theatre (booking until 2 Jan 2025)

Laughing Boy, Jermyn Street Theatre

Shifters, Duke of Yorks Theatre

When It Happens to You, Park Theatre

Little Foxes, Young Vic (booking until 8 Feb 2025)

Alma Mater, Almeida Theatre

Cyrano, Park Theatre (booking until 11 Jan 2025)

For Black Boys... Garrick Theatre

Wormholes, Omnibus Theatre

Waiting For Godot, Theatre Royal Haymarket

The Long Run, New Diorama

The Importance of Being Earnest, National Theatre (booking until 25 Jan, 2025)

Least favourite plays of 2024:

Machinal, Old Vic Theatre - I'm a feminist, but...I found the central female character extremely irritating. Sorry, I know a lot of people really liked this play. It's the second production I've seen, and I had a similar response the first time, so nothing to do with the Old Vic.

Tessa Wong, Virginia Gay, and Joseph Evans in Cyrano, Park Theatre. Photo: Craig Sugden

Virginia Gay's effervescent, gender-flipped rom-com version of Cyrano won a Fringe First award and now takes up residence at the Park Theatre.

A Greek Chorus sets a cheeky, humourous tone. Two know each other - 1 (Tessa Wong) and 2 (David Tarkenter), but neither knows 3 (Tanvi Virmani), which becomes a running joke. There are other running jokes.

3 tends to blurt out inappropriate things, while 1 likes to play with metaphors, and 2 is very thespy. Their sage and silly commentary isn't just in the background.

Then we meet Cyrano (Virginia Gay), who has an amazing way with words and an amazingly large nose - we are told, as it's left to our imagination. 

Cyrano falls in love with the beautiful and clever Roxanne (Jessica Whitehurst), who falls in love with the pretty but dim Yan (Joseph Evans). The latter enlists Cyrano to help him woo Roxanne.

Beneath the wit and humour, of which there is plenty, this a sexy, heartfelt story. It is raucous, playful and joyful, but it also has its sad and poignant moments, just as a rom-com should.

There are subtleties, too, such as Cyrano's slow drift into trying to look like Yan - in dress, at least.

In keeping with the original story, it is also an exploration of language and wordplay - the cleverness and snobbishness that can come with that. There are morals to the tale: Sometimes a simpler, more direct language can be just as effective or just be yourself.

Virginia Gay's Cyrano is witty and fun with a party spirit that feels wholly appropriate for the festive season. I'm giving it ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Cyrano, Park Theatre

Written by Virginia Gay after Edmond Rostand

Directed by Clare Watson

Cast: Virginia Gay, Jessica Whitehurst, Joseph Evans, Tessa Wong, David Tarkenter, Tanvi Virmani

Running time 90 minutes with no interval

Booking until 11 January, for more details and to buy tickets, visit the Park Theatre website

Recently reviewed:

The year is ending on a high, have had a run of mostly cracking plays

Little Foxes, Young Vic (video review) booking until 8 February, 2025 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Importance of Being Earnest (video review) booking until 25 January, 2025 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Oedipus, Wyndhams Theatre booking until 2 January ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Tempest, Theatre Royal Drury Lane (video review) booking until 1 February, 2025 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

NYT REP Company, The War of the Worlds, Wilton's Music Hall. Photo: Johan Persson

On 30 October 1938, the broadcast of Orson Wells' radio play version of H G Wells's sci-fi novel The War of the Worlds caused panic. Its realistic news programme style led some to believe a real alien invasion was happening.

In this National Youth Theatre production, created by Rhum + Clay and written with Isley Lynn, people's reaction to the radio play becomes the topic of a podcast by fledgling British podcast journalist Meena (Talitha Christina).

She comes across the story of a New Jersey family who apparently took fright and left their daughter at home to fend for herself. With the 2016 election campaign in full flow, Meena travels to the US to try and find the truth but unearths a bigger story.

The play is injected with snippets of stylised movement that add a quirky edge to the narrative. It mixes the tone and style of 1930s radio drama with a more contemporary feel, which cements the play's themes.

Valerie Antwi, Emma McDonald and Christopher York in Foreverland, Southwark Playhouse Photo: Charlie Lyne

If medical science made it possible to live forever, frozen at the age you have the procedure, would you do it? The ability to stay young and live way beyond what is normal is the premise of Emma Hemingford's play Foreverland at the Southwark Playhouse Borough.

The idea is explored through the life of teacher Alice (Emma McDonald) and her entrepreneur husband Jay (Christopher York), who pass the criteria and, crucially, have the money to undertake the procedure.

Attracted by the idea of fulfilling their dreams and leading the perfect life where time is on their side, they put last-minute nerves to one side and go ahead.

The future world in which this play is set is kept mostly at arm's length in the first half of the play as it focuses on Alice and Jay's relationship. Given that they don't age, it is difficult to tell how much time is passing as the narrative cycles through snippets of their daily lives until the arrival of their daughter Annie (Emily Butler).

It seems like they are indeed living their dream life, except there are hints that all is not content; time doesn't erase the past, it seems. And Annie grows up (Una Byrne) and sees things differently from her parents.

The adult Annie brings the outside world into their 'fulfilling' lives and shines a different light on the procedure and its implications for society. However this comes quite late in the story to generate much of a debate.

Serkan Avlik and Ojan Genc in Ostan, Park Theatre. Photo Jack Bush

Arzhang Pezhman's play Ostan is set in a car wash where owner Shapur (Dana Haqjoo) employs asylum seekers. Rebin (Ojan Genc) doggedly chases progress on his application for indefinite leave while trying to train newbie Gorkem (Serkan Avlik) how to use all the different cleaning products.

The car wash faces stiff competition, and Shapur is not happy with the amount of money it is making. The financial situation is not helped by customers like Noah (El Anthony), who don't always have the money to hand to pay.

Performed in Park Theatre's smaller space, with the audience on either side, the small stage is busy with its car wash set and characters coming and going.

The story is also busy. There are the car wash's struggles, asylum struggles, cultural clashes and racial tensions, and a side-line in people smuggling. There is also Gorkem's fledgling rap career and online computer gaming obsessions.

Conversations primarily take place in the car wash, but there are also a lot of one-sided phone calls and chatting through headsets while gaming.

The latter is performed among the audience, with Noah and Rebin sitting on either side of the stage in the back row. A screen hanging above the performance space shows snippets of the game they are playing.

Threadbare Theatre's Offroading, Old Red Lion Theatre

Offroading at the Old Red Lion is an opposites-attract comedy-drama in which the couple's relationship and their imagined futures are tested.

Writer Lucy Linger tells the story through the eyes of Steve (Owen Frost), who recounts his memories of meeting and falling in love with Jane (Elise Verney).

Steve is steady, middle-of-the-road, plodding contentedly through life. He is still in his graduate job after 10 years and still living with his parents. Jane blows like a whirlwind into his life; she is free-spirited, impulsive, bohemian and doesn't like to lay down roots.

Their awkward first meeting is in a pub. Steve is nervously waiting for his blind date to show up and mistakes Jane for the person he is meeting.

It's a slow-burn relationship, frustratingly so for Steve who has been enamoured with Jane pretty much from the start.

But despite their differences and a few bumps, it seems to work. That is until they face a bigger challenge, which throws their differences into stark relief. It turns their differences from quirks to irks and throws into question the paths they see themselves on.

Owen Frost's Steve regularly talks directly to the audience, giving his impressions of the relationship and commentary that comes with the benefit of hindsight.

The two actors spark in their scenes together, convincing as a mismatched couple. The first half bobs along, buoyed by plenty of light humour and wit.

Country music is cool, and it's going to launch 17-year-old Conor (Harry Evans) into a glittering career as a backing dancer in the US or winning a talent competition in his hometown of Croydon will.

That's the premise of Hugo Timbrell's play My Life As a Cowboy, which has just opened at the Omnibus Theatre in Clapham.

Conor is living an average suburban life. He works as a lifeguard at the local leisure centre and is generally cheerful and optimistic but worries that he might be a loser.

His best friend, Zainab (Nusrath Tapadar), reluctantly agrees to help him with his dance routine for the competition and join him in performing.

Zainab is spirited, sharp and kind, but tensions flare when their duo becomes a trio as Conor swaps the chosen Shania Twain song for fellow lifeguard Michael's self-penned country song about...being a lifeguard.

Michael isn't the sharpest person and is not always the most considerate of others.

The action switches deftly back and forth between rehearsals in Conor's bedroom to the poolside chats with Michael and later to Croydon Town Hall for the auditions and performance.

When It Happens to You at the Park Theatre. Photo by Mark Douet. L-r Amanda Abbington and Rosie Day

The 'it' in When It Happens To You at the Park Theatre is revealed with a horrific punch in the play's opening moments. It's 3am, and Tara (Amanda Abbington) is woken up by her mobile. It's her daughter Esme (Rosie Day), who lives hours away in New York.

I'm deliberately not saying what 'it' is as that detail is not mentioned in the play description. One of the themes is the difficulty in saying the specific word and how hard it is for people to talk about it generally.

The play is written by Tawni O'Dell, who has drawn on her own experiences and focuses on the immediate and longer-term aftermath of the events of that night for Tara, Esme, and her brother Connor (Miles Molan).

There isn't the expected closure when criminal proceedings draw to their conclusion. Esme says she doesn't want to be defined by what happened, yet the event of that night subsequently defines each member of the family unit and their formally strong relationship is shattered.

It's a horror that lives on as they try to come to terms with it, and it's made all the more heart-wrenching by watching their inability to comfort each other. They just don't know how.

Victoria Yeates in Wormholes, Omnibus Theatre. Photo: R Greig

There's a bitter irony when the Woman (Victoria Yeates) talks about the world being a better place in the opening scene of Wormholes at the Omnibus Theatre. She lists the almost complete eradication of the Guinea Worm as part of the evidence.

But the irony only becomes truly apparent as her story unfolds. The Guinea Worm, which lives and slowly grows inside its human host for a long time before it painfully emerges, is a metaphor for the coercive relationship she ends up in.

We first see the Woman in a psychiatric hospital, talking about her fellow patients and recounting her story from the fun first date and the slow, insidious infiltration of control over every aspect of her life.

In the introduction to the play text, writer Emily Jupp says it was important that the Woman represented an 'everywoman' to demonstrate that these experiences aren't restricted to a type.

The Woman in the play has a strong group of friends, is bubbly, enjoys life, has a good job and, unlike some of her friends, is not particularly looking for a relationship.

Covered in a blue rubbery material, the stage has an institutional feel. There is nothing else, it is just Victoria Yates and the space. She also plays 'Him', the Woman's mother and her best friend Jess.

While you see everything from the Woman's perspective, the presence of both mother and friend demonstrates how the outward appearance of a relationship can be so deceptive. It raises important questions: Would you spot the signs if it happened to your friend? What would you do if you did? What could you do?

Knives and Forks is part of the Riverside Studios Bitesize Festival and tells the story of female friendship in challenging circumstances.

Iris (Ianthe Bathurst) and Thalia (Thea Mayeux) met at university and now share a flat. They laugh, reminisce, and bicker in a relationship firmly cemented by the unique love great friends have.

But their friendship is tested when one of them gets ill.

Iris and Thalia are also represented on stage by their 'psyches' played by India Walton and Chien-Hui Yen, respectively, who dress identically to their counterparts.

They don't say anything but are a constant presence. They dance alone, in sequence and together, sometimes mimicking the speaking actors sometimes not.

The psyches also draw and write on the white paper backdrop to the stage. There is also a chalkboard where they scribble dates representing the story's non-linear timeline.

We see the impact on Iris and Thalia's friendship and on each of the friends from the illness and secrets that surround it. There is love, fear and anger, mistakes and regrets of things done and not done.

It is powerful stuff, but it could be more powerful if it was stripped back.