Dickie Beau in SHOWMANISM. Photo: Amanda Searle

Ian McKellan is on stage. Or at least his voice is, but not the man himself, that part's being played Dickie Beau.

Having interviewed the renowned actor about performing, Dickie Beau re-delivers what he says by lip-synching with pinpoint timing. He captures perfectly the variations in speed of delivery, every pause, sigh, chuckle and laugh.

If you saw Dickie Beau's previous show, Re-member Me, you'll be familiar with the skilled technique.

It is both gobsmackingly good and somewhat discombobulating. 

Ian McKellan's isn't the only voice on stage in Showmanism, although his interview is the most used. Fiona Shaw 'joins' him among the thespian voices, and there are others from in and around the world of performance, including a voice coach, performance historian, impressionist and director. 

Some are recordings from interviews with Dickie Beau, others are historic recordings.  

They are a series of anecdotes and verbal essays that muse on performance, its nature and meaning. There’s serious history in there, such as talk about how sound was amplified in Greek theatres and how that had the effect of democratising voice. 

Jamie Bisping, Sara Hazemi, Paul Thornley and Ruby Stokes in The Habits, Hampstead Theatre. Photo: Genevieve Girling

The Habits is set in a board game cafe where Jess (Ruby Stokes), Maryn (Sara Hazemi) and Milo (Jamie Bisping) meet to escape into a world of Dungeons & Dragons dwarfs, wizards and the mysterious Nightmare King.

Cafe owner Dennis (Paul Thornley) is also running away from something, and it's not just the fact that everyone else is playing Monopoly.

But real life is knocking against the door of their created fantasy landscape. It's there in the banter and bickering about Brexit, politics and gender, which influences how they treat other characters in the game.

There is also the real life that is closer to home that tumbles into the game through their conversations and phone call interruptions: the stressful job, the reluctance to commit to anything and the raw grief.

The stage is set up 'in the round' with just a table and chairs in the middle. Knowing the game-playing setting, I was a little worried at the start that the characters might spend a lot of their time sitting with their back to chunks of the audience. 

Reykjavik, Hampstead Theatre. Photo: Mark Douet

Richard Bean's new play Reykjavik at the Hampstead Theatre is set in the 1970s among a community of Hull-based trawler fishing men.

It is hard and dangerous work, taking the men away for three weeks at a time as they head further and further into potentially dangerous waters to find fish.

Boats returning without a good catch risk big losses for the owner of the company, Donald Claxton (John Hollingworth), and potentially the sack for the skipper.

But tragedy strikes and one of Claxton's boats sinks in freezing seas off Iceland, resulting in the death of 15 crew. Donald goes from being the disliked "capitalist" boss to being hated by those he employs and their families.

The first half is set in Donald Claxton's dim, solid, dark wood-furnished warehouse office (set design by Anna Reid), where interactions with a string of visitors reveal more of the boss and life in the community.

While Claxton is a businessman, he isn't without heart and respects the traditions built up around tragedies of this sort.

The community is like any other in its mix of relationships and gossip, and long stretches away at sea suit some families and workers more than others. Their's is an inherent practicality in their approach to life and work, but it is wrapped in a thin veil of superstition and myth. 

This is something that gets explored in the second half of the play, which is set in a hotel in Reykjavik where four survivors from the sunken ship are holed up before they get a boat home.

Claxton flies out to meet them, and with visible tensions, they settle in for a night of drinking and storytelling to pass the time.

Natalie Simpson as Marianne and James Corrigan as Stefan. Photo: Marc Brenner

It's curious that the play description on the Hampstead Theatre website for Visit From An Unknown Woman focuses on the male character, Stefan, played by James Corrigan, while the story firmly revolves around the mysterious Marianne (Natalie Simpson).

Based on a short story by Stefan Zweig and adapted for the stage by Christopher Hampton, the 1930s Vienna-set play opens with Stefan arriving at his sparse apartment with a woman he's just picked up at a nightclub.

Or at least he thinks he just picked her up. Marianne, it seems, is more familiar with Stefan than he is with her. The clue is in the younger version of Marianne (Jessie Gattward), who haunts the edges of the stage.

The source short story is a letter Marianne writes to Stefan, a successful novelist and her former neighbour.

In the play, she has the majority of the dialogue, which means that Marianne becomes the main conduit through which we learn about Stefan and how her life is linked to his. 

A childhood crush on him has developed into an obsession in adult life. She's been a keen observer/stalker of him ever since, to the point where she understands him probably better than he understands himself.

Anushka Chakravarti, Rachael Stirling and Dominic Rowan in The Divine Mrs S at Hampstead Theatre. Photo: Johan Persson

As The Divine Mrs S opens, we see brother and sister actors John Kemble (Dominic Rowan) and Sarah Siddens (Rachael Stirling) performing on stage at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.

John gives a booming, stilted performance in comic contrast with Sarah, who is far more natural and emotionally charged. In delivering her final line, she faints from the effort and is carried off stage, a common occurrence we later find out.

The audience laps it up. Mrs Sarah Siddons is a celebrated actress guaranteed to pack out the theatre in late 18th-century London. John believes himself to be a great actor and, as the manager of the theatre, chooses the plays and casts himself in the starring roles.

Not that there are any lead roles for actresses.

Sarah might be adored for her stage performances but that doesn't stop the newspapers and gossip rags tearing into her for not being at home with her husband and children.

When one of her daughters gets sick and dies, she is accused of neglect.

Rachael Stirling's Mrs S is commanding and effervescent. She is sharp and witty character, which alongside her acting talent become her weapons - the only weapons she is afforded in a male-dominated society.

It feels like theatre returned with a splash in 2023 after the dark days of Covid. I saw 62 and a half plays (64 and a half, including second viewings) across London's plethora of theatres, from tiny pubs to big West End stages.

Here are my favourite 10 plays - in no particular order (links are to the full review).

1. No One, Omnibus Theatre

This was a fun, lively and inventive storytelling, with brilliant fight scenes.

2. Linck and Mulhahn, Hampstead Theatre

Based on a real same-sex couple living in the 18th Century Prussia, this was a witty, effervescent and heartbreaking play.

3. Mediocre White Male, King's Head Theatre

Subtle shifts and throwaway remarks build to make a powerful point.

4. A Little Life, Harold Pinter Theatre (and Savoy Theatre)

A harrowing and compelling play that utterly flawed me and I had to go back and see it again.

5. The Motive and the Cue, National Theatre and Noel Coward Theatre

Superb performances in this sharp, funny and interesting play. So good, I had to see it twice.

Nathaniel Parker & Jacob Fortune-Lloyd in Rock 'n' Roll, Hampstead Theatre 2023. Photo Manuel Harlan

Cards on the table, I don't always get on with Tom Stoppard's plays. I love Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead but have yet to find another of his plays that resonates or connects with me. Would Rock 'n' Roll at the Hampstead Theatre be different?

This play is set in Cambridge and Czechoslovakia. It covers 20 or so years in the life of Marxist professor Max (Nathaniel Parker), his wife Eleanor (Nancy Carroll), daughter Esme (young Phoebe Horn, older Nancy Carroll) and post-grad student and rock music fan Jan (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd).

At the start of the play, Jan is returning to Czechoslovakia but has a falling out with Max about Communism. The younger is disillusioned with the Soviet version of communism, which involves restrictions and censorship, while the older remains a stalwart of the party.

Jan's obsession with music and his prized record collection become a symbol of freedom and resistance and something for which he gets into trouble when communist controls tighten in Prague.

Meanwhile, Esme is obsessed with Syd Barrett and claims to have seen him once (he lived in Cambridge). Barrett appears in references throughout the play.

Eleanor is a classical literature tutor, which becomes another cultural thread to be debated.

There are some passing romantic relationships, but the love story here is primarily about communism, music, and culture.

Stoppard's plays are deeply intellectual, often involving extended, densely worded debates. My problem is that the specific scientific/political/historical/cultural period in focus is usually unfamiliar, so I don't have any points of reference.

As such, I find myself distanced from the topics under discussion and hankering after the threads of human story.

Marion Bailey and Alun Armstrong as Flo & Jack Kirk in To Have and To Hold, Hampstead Theatre. Photo: Marc Brenner

Is Richard Bean's new comedy To Have and To Hold at the Hampstead Theatre as funny as One Man, Two Guv'nors? Comparison, when you've had such a big hit, is inevitable.

This has a very different setting; it's loosely based on his own family and centres on nonagenarians Jack (Alun Armstrong) and Flo (Marion Bailey).

They are getting to the point where living independently in their Humberside village of Wetwang is more tricky. Retired policeman Jack isn't very mobile and no longer drives, and Flo's eyesight and memory aren't great.

The couple rely on 'Rhubarb Eddie' (Adrian Hood) and Pamela (Rachel Dale) for shopping and help around the house and garden. Jack and Flo have been married for 70 years, and while parts of them might not work as well as they used to, they are still sharp enough mentally to bicker and argue constantly.

Grown-up children Rob (Christopher Fulford) and Tina (Hermione Gulliford) have taken time out from their busy lives and jobs to visit and try and sort out their situation.

Jemma Redgrave and Ewan Miller in Octopolis, Hampstead Theatre 2023. Photo: The Other Richard

Princess Diana's famous line: 'there were three people in my marriage' is given an eccentric twist in a line from Marek Horn's Octopolis: There were three people in my marriage... and 12 legs.

The legs refer to Frances, an octopus living in a tank in the home of Professor George Grey (Jemma Redgrave). She and her recently deceased husband have been studying Frances.

Anthropologist Dr Henry Giscard (Ewan Miller) is sent to stay at George's University-owned home and immediately clashes with the prickly, grieving Professor.

George continues to write papers on Frances, and Henry has his research to gather information for, but they find begrudging respect for each other in their mutual love of David Bowie - and debates about Frances.

Henry believes he can prove that Frances believes in a God, but George thinks that is nonsense and has her own ideas with which to dismiss his theory.

Their heated discussions about animals, humans, feelings and souls are peppered with asides, little observations of each other often delivered with deadpan wit.

Will Young in Song From Far Away at Hampstead Theatre 2023. Photo: Mark Senior

Yes, I voted for Will Young on Pop Idol, but I've never seen him on stage as he's mainly done musicals, so I was excited to see him in Song From Far Away.

The fact that I loved the play the first time I saw it at the Young Vic back in 2015 added to the excitement.



It’s told in the form of letters Willem (Will Young) has written to his dead brother Pauli, recalling the trip home to Amsterdam for his funeral after 12 years away living in New York.

Willem is a sharp observer of the people he encounters and his family. His comments are arch. And yet he retreats from any meaningful connection, avoiding family engagements.

Rather he opts for casual sex in the hotel he is staying at and yearns for a relationship he had when he was younger that he ran away from.

His emotions, in part, reflect the stages of grief; he is in denial, he gets angry, he bargains, and he is depressed, but it is also driven by introspection sparked by the loss.

The sudden absence of his brother and the return home forces him to reflect on his life and his actions.