THE year 2024 has seen the march of the mighty throughout the world. Right-wing demagogues, warmongers, business tycoons, financial dealers, investors in cryptocurrency, company directors, the rich and famous have not only filled our news but dramatically ridden roughshod over the more real and gritty lives that most of us live… which is why we need the arts to free us from the prevailing dogma and  give us voice.

And, while the West End often reflects – rather than challenges – the status quo with its commercially driven subject matter and celebrity casting, it does throw up some gems, while the smaller fringe theatres burst with energy.

[[{"fid":"72354","view_mode":"inlineleft","fields":{"format":"inlineleft","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"AUTHENTIC: (L to R) Sinead Matthews, Lisa McGrillis and Lorraine Ashbourne. Photo: Manuel Harlan","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false},"link_text":null,"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"inlineleft","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"AUTHENTIC: (L to R) Sinead Matthews, Lisa McGrillis and Lorraine Ashbourne. Photo: Manuel Harlan","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false}},"attributes":{"alt":"AUTHENTIC: (L to R) Sinead Matthews, Lisa McGrillis and Lorraine Ashbourne. Photo: Manuel Harlan","class":"media-element file-inlineleft","data-delta":"1"}}]]The National Theatre excelled this year with Beth Steel’s Till the Stars Come Down. Set in Nottinghamshire in the present, this production, directed by Bijan Sheibani, was funny, pacy, authentic, character-driven, and beautifully cast, hitting home the true state of 21st-century deprivation in this country and the pity of shattered dreams.  

On the fringe, the Finborough still mesmerises with rediscovered treasures, even though the pub in which it plays remains temporarily closed.

This year it was The Silver Cord by Sidney Howard – last seen on the London stage almost a century ago – that confirmed this little theatre as a serious contender with the best. Starring Sophie Ward, the play’s examination of the intense and potentially destructive relationship between mother and son could apply as well today as it did in the 1920s.

The Orange Tree Theatre has benefited this year from the artistic directorship of Tom Littler who aims big and is certainly attracting excellent actors and writers to work with him. David Edgar’s Here in America – examining the impact of McCarthyism on the great and good with telling parallels to now – stood out, while the current, superbly cast Twelfth Night really hits the jackpot.

Southwark Playhouse’s dazzling musical Cable Street, though, somehow defined the year with its massively relevant and topical take on the 1930s Mosley fascist uprising in east London. Exploring the plight of immigrants in a community driven to violence, Adam Lenson’s production saw Alex Kanefsky’s script and Tim Gilvin’s music and lyrics set the stage alight and galvanise the audience. This was theatre excelling at every level.

Revivals have proliferated: top of the heap A View from the Bridge at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. Directed by Lindsey Posner and starring Dominic West, this great Arthur Miller play worked its magic as always, elevating a simple, truthful tale of ordinary people to a classic timeless tragedy.  

Similarly, Eugene O’Neill’s A Long Day’s Journey into Night at Wyndham’s re-confirmed its brilliance, while Macbeth – first at the Donmar and then at the Harold Pinter – almost upstaged itself with its own innovative, production-defining technology. The inspirational casting of David Tennant and Cush Jumbo, however, saved the day.

Meanwhile, a new double-bill of Arnold Wesker’s Roots and John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger at the Almeida incited us to radical fury all over again And Waiting for Godot with Ben Wishaw and Lucian Msamati hit the Haymarket as if it had never been away.

All good but we need a new emergent voice in these times. Neither the eagerly awaited Jez Butterworth’s Hills of California, nor Joe Penhall’s The Constituent starring James Corden quite fulfilled their promise, though both addressed thrilling themes and held their audience.

Meanwhile, Jeremy O’Harris’s new, electric Slave Play turned matters of race and sex into one big gas.

All this adds up to one uncertain and nervous year, showing that the theatre, like the world, stands on a precipice and seems uncertain where to jump — 2025 will be a revelation.