The 15 London theatre shows we loved the most in 2015

National Theatre, Olivier

Rufus Norris announced his arrival as National Theatre boss with typical brio: Carol Ann Duffy’s adaptation of this old English folk play saw charismatic star Chiwetel Ejiofor struggle heroically with Norris’s visually overwhelming production that at one point called for him to toot a ten-metre-long line of coke.

Regent's Park Open Air Theatre

This tour-de-force take on JM Barrie’s play was one of the highlights of the summer, a dark, elegiac, visually ravishing World War One-set reformatting of Pan and the gang’s antics. Hopefully we haven’t seen the last of Timothy Sheader’s production.

Lyric Hammersmith

The Lyric emerged from the chrysalis of upgrade works and the self-consciously cool Secret Theatre project it's been running for the last two years with this riotous comeback, a very, very rare revival of Alan Parker’s gunge-tastic kiddie gangsters musical.

Tricycle Theatre and West End

Powered by a great performance from the veteran Kenneth Cranham, this chic, dark French drama that treated dementia like a Pinter-esque mystery was an unexpected but deserved smash for the Tricycle, going on to complete a season in the West End.

West End

The sheer chutzpah of transferring this site-specific take on Stephen Sondheim’s gory musical from a pie shop in Tooting to an exact replica of the same pie shop in the West End is basically enough to earn Tooting Arts Club’s wonderful ‘…Todd’ a spot for the second year on the trot.

West End

It’s not been a vintage year for new musicals, but the West End’s great British hope was a real charmer, Gurinder Chadha’s ebullient, feelgood adaptation of her own smash Britflick.

Yard Theatre

The Yard cemented its reputation as the most important theatre in east London with Pamela Carter’s unsettling new play about the lives of barrack-bound British soldiers.

Royal Court Theatre

The enigmatic Debbie Tucker Green – or debbie tucker green as she prefers – returned with a devastating study of grief and anger in which Marianne Jean-Baptiste starred as a grieving mother being offered to take revenge on the (presumed) killer of her child by a pair of bumbling bureaucrats.

Young Vic

It’s been a big year for Mike Bartlett: his ‘King Charles III’ took Broadway by storm, and he had a big TV smash with ‘Doctor Foster’. Originally seen in Sheffield in 2013, ‘Bull’ was a lower-key work, but certainly not one to be overlooked: a merciless, predatory depiction of workplace bullying set in a boxing ring, audience members were observed passing out from its sheer intensity. It returns recast over Christmas.

Young Vic

A blazing turn from Romola Garai, an entirely gratuitous homage to early-‘90s hip hop videos, and sex dolls: lots and lots of sex dolls. Joe Hill-Gibbins’s filthy, chaotic, thrilling take on Shakespeare’s dark morality play was exhilarating, rule-breaking stuff.

Royal Court Theatre and West End

After a decade away from theatre, Martin McDonagh effortlessly retook his crown with this pitch-black, precision-tooled comedy about Britain’s last hangmen and the collision of the ’60s dream and an older, bleaker England.

RECOMMENDED: Read an interview with Martin McDonagh 

West End

The RSC’s epic drama about Robert J Oppenheimer – the father of the atomic bomb – was a remarkable bolt from the blue by little-known writer Tom Morton-Smith. In a stupendous performance, John Heffernan was less a science boffin, more a shaman, conducting a terrible ritual that would change the world forever.

National Theatre, Dorfman (and West End 2016)

Duncan MacMillan’s ‘People, Places and Things’ is a darn fine piece of writing. But what elevated it into an event was the staggering central performance from Denise Gough as an incorrigible, inscrutable addict hurling herself through rehab with reckless abandon. It is a performance that should to win awards and finally elevate Gough to the big league she deserves: the show and its star transfer to the West End in March.

Almeida Theatre and West End

Following ‘Chimerica’ and ‘King Charles III’, the Almeida tops our end of year list for the third year on the trot. Robert Icke’s epic, harrowing, gorgeous, thoroughly modern rewiring of  Aescylus’s millennia-old trilogy of plays was extraordinary stuff, propelled by a phenomenal performance by Lia Williams as Klytemnestra. But it’s writer-director Icke’s devastating script and chicly avant-garde sensibility that burns brightest in the mind.