Welcome to my Circles & Stalls look back at 2024.
As in previous years, this is very much a best of Manchester theatre list. So, it doesn’t include any shows that were passing through on tour or that were revivals from elsewhere. It’s exclusively focused on productions that either premiered in Greater Manchester or could only be seen here.
It may seem an odd approach, but it’s one that works for me.
Theatre outside of London continues to feel increasingly homogenous. Due to funding pressures, there’s a growing reliance on co-productions between various theatres, and a general decline in the number of in-house productions – which means the same touring shows seem to pop up on both sides of the Pennines and beyond.
So, with no sign of that trend reversing, it feels more important than ever to celebrate Manchester-made work and productions that start their journey in the city region.
I saw just over 130 shows this year. As a solo blogger, I am never going to get to see everything in Greater Manchester and there is bound to be an element of personal taste in my choices – but then I’m not claiming that these are anything other than my favourite theatre experiences of the past year.
So, in no particular order, these are my top Manchester shows of 2024 – with the usual additional mentions thrown in.
42 Balloons (The Lowry, April 2024).
Jack Godfrey’s bright and breezy new musical about a helium-powered lawn chair flight over LA was a total joy. Glossy on the surface, but with a lot of character – it benefited from a high-quality production put together with real care and attention. All these months later, I still think of Evelyn Hoskins’ beautifully delivered Disney-princess-meets-Eurovision ballad Helium.
You can read my full review here.
The Laramie Project (Grosvenor East Theatre, April 2024).
Director Adam Zane has worked on various versions of The Laramie Project over the years. Here, with a strong ensemble cast (made up of Manchester School of Theatre’s 2024 graduates), his latest production effortlessly conjured up a whole town’s worth of people. The stage was busy with activity, and there was urgency and purpose, but also a sense of space and possibilities – big skies and far horizons. Elegantly staged and handled with the lightest of touches – it had real impact.
A Taste of Honey (Royal Exchange, March 2024).
It’s been a really solid year for the Royal Exchange, with Josh Roche’s surprising and fun take on The Importance of being Earnest, and some fine performances in their production of Lynn Nottage’s Sweat (especially Pooky Quesnell and Carla Henry). Emma Baggott’s atmospheric and affecting revival of Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey was a highlight. Seamlessly blending a dream-like fragility with gritty social realism, it was a wonderfully imaginative revival.
You can read my full review here.
Work It Out (HOME, March 2024).
It’s rare that I’d trot out the cliché about there not being a weak link in the cast, but in Sarah Frankcom’s production of Eve Steele’s exercise class set drama, it was genuinely true – with great performances all round. Katie Scott’s meticulously mundane community centre (with its notice boards, swing doors and stackable chairs) set the scene nicely, while Jennifer Jackson’s intricate choreography told stories as powerfully as Steele’s life-giving dialogue.
Robin/Red/Breast (Factory International, May 2024).
By now, Manchester audiences should be prepared to expect the unexpected from Maxine Peake and Sarah Frankcom – especially in their work for Factory International /MIF. This total reimagining of a 1970s folk horror TV play was no exception. Peake’s Norah was a woman increasingly on the edge, until she eventually wasn’t, for a feverish if cathartic 55 minutes. Daringly dream-like, it was full of striking imagery – Lizzie Clachan’s cage-like cottage, the ghostly brass band players – and its scratchy, fractured narrative offered no neat endings.
Shed: Exploded View (Royal Exchange, February 2024).
Phoebe Eclair-Powell’s Bruntwood Prize winning play Shed: Exploded View is written in such a way as to allow its seemingly random selection of domestic interactions to be reordered, or even not used, to suit the production. Director Atri Banerjee’s agile framing was deeply thoughtful, almost forensic, in its approach. Carefully handled, as pieces fell into place, the production gathered momentum. There was no waiting for revelations, we sort of knew where things were heading, as Banerjee and his hard-working cast set in motion a gathering storm.
You can read my full review here.
pool [no water] (YES, July 2024).
ETAL Theatre’s striking revival of Mark Ravenhill’s pool [no water] was a welcome blast of cool air in the middle of summer. Playful, and full of twisted energy, director Arthur Loade’s insightful production benefited greatly from not being over-worked, a little rough still around the edges. A wonderfully chilly gap developed between the bubbling euphoria of the blissed-out DJ beats and the bitter cynicism and jealousy fuelling the drama. And well done to 53two for giving the show a second home, after its all-too-brief sold-out initial run at YES.
WRESTLELADSWRESTLE (HOME, October 2024).
Jennifer Jackson’s girl-gang powered, space-reclaiming extravaganza WRESTLELADSWRESTLE brought a lively and anarchic energy to HOME’s Theatre 2. With a 30-strong company of performers charging in from all directions, livestreamed off stage warm-ups, on stage wrestling moves, and even some women running fearlessly at a padded wall – Jackson’s ambitious show pushed at the limits of the space, and burned with a desire to right wrongs, and help women stand tall.
You can read my full review here.
American Buffalo (King’s Arms, March 2024).
Director David Thacker’s excellent production nurtured the tension nestling in the dense dialogue of David Mamet’s AMERICAN BUFFALO, to create something truly gripping. Thacker’s up-close and in-the round-staging (upstairs at the King’s Arms) drew three superb performances from David MacCreedy, Colin Connor and John O’Neill – with MacCreedy on especially strong form as a brilliantly infuriating Teach, stirring everything to boiling point.
Cock (53two, November 2024).
A collaboration between Hannah Ellis Ryan’s HER Productions and John O’Neill’s Up’Ere, this revival of Mike Bartlett’s Cock was clever, edge-of-your-seat theatre. Characters seemed to circle each other, without moving closer together. No touch, no intimacy – it seemed more about possession than passion. With not a moment wasted, the whole thing was tightly drawn together by director Rupert Hill – and the four fully committed performances wrung every drop of emotion, drama and comedy from the writing. This was Manchester’s show of the year.
You can read Matt Barton’s review in The Observer here.
Beyond that top ten, here are a few more people, shows and experiences that I really rated over the last twelve months.
Oli Hurst and Matilda Philipson’s Red Brick continued to be the Manchester theatre company to look out for – staging Caryl Churchill’s A Number (directed with flair and a keen eye by Jess Gough) at 53two and premiering Robin Cantwell’s Bad Moult at the King’s Arms with a big, broiling bravura performance from Colin Connor.
Talking of Colin Connor, he’s had quite the year. I doubt any other actor could equal his 2024 Manchester theatre hit rate, with three eye-catching and very different performances in American Buffalo, Bad Moult and Cock. Presumably he’s now looking for a play beginning with D to kickstart 2025.
Meagan Keaveny shone brightly in Janine Waters’ In The Time of Dragons at The Edge in February. A few months later, she and Ellie Campbell premiered Is This Thing On? at Contact. Its tales of friendship, finding your voice, and being a woman played around with form, and travelled from laugh out loud frankness to quietly contained pain. Powerful and engaging, it was also a confident calling card for Keaveny and Campbell’s new company MissMatch.
Hope Mill’s A Christmas Carol (still running at the Lowry as I write this) is musical theatre of the highest quality. Sung with a clarity that puts most other productions I saw this year to shame; it is also artfully choreographed and gorgeously designed. Surely this must mark the beginning of a fruitful partnership with The Lowry? In recent years, several of Hope Mill’s most ambitious musicals have felt cramped within the confines of their Ancoats auditorium, while their quick-paced, refreshing take on Dickens slots smoothly into the Lowry’s much bigger Quays Theatre.
And finally – two recent productions at Manchester College, Punk Rock, a fantastic, firing-on-all-cylinders collaboration with Ugly Bucket and an evocative, thoughtfully put together adaptation of Kae Tempest’s Brand New Ancients (directed by Bryony Shanahan), suggest The Arden’s current cohort of students are on quite a roll.
In terms of shows not made in Greater Manchester:
I thought Dark Noon, fix + foxy’s epic, scalding reimagining of American history, was the sort of high-quality international work we should be seeing more of at Aviva Studios.
Over in the more intimate setting of the Kings Arms, Adam Halcro was heartbreakingly good in Working Progress Collective’s Sessions – with a finely-tuned mix of lost boy vulnerability and laddish armour.
Ephemeral Ensemble’s inventive and quietly powerful REWIND (programmed as part of ¡Viva! Festival in April) didn’t get the attention it deserved during its brief visit to the city for some reason – which was a real shame, as it was one of the best things at HOME this year.
Away from Manchester, I was lucky enough to see The Other Place, Alexander Zeldin’s gripping, gut-punch of a play at the National Theatre.
At the Almeida, Ellora Torchia gave an astonishing performance in Atri Banerjee’s revelatory production of Look Back in Anger. As Billy Howle’s Jimmy Porter went on, and on, and on, it was Torchia’s embattled Alison that your gaze tracked – it was impossible to look away.
Over at Sheffield, Siena Kelly was equally mesmerising as Nora in Chris Bush’s refreshing adaption of A Doll’s House.
Anyway, that’s it. Goodbye 2024 – here’s to a new year, with Hannah Ellis Ryan’s HER Productions tackling Blithe Spirit at Hope Mill in February, Hamlet Hail To The Thief opens at Aviva Studios in April, the return of Manchester International Festival in July, and the first season from the Royal Exchange’s new Creative Director Selina Cartwell in the autumn.
Images: The Laramie Project by Ben Redshaw & Maria Catallina, 42 Balloons by Pamela Raith, A Taste of Honey by Johan Persson, Work It Out by Chris Payne, Shed: Exploded View by Johan Persson, Robin/Red/Breast by Tristram Kenton, pool [no water] by Abbie Gresty, WRESTLELADSWRESTLE provided by HOME, American Buffalo by Shay Rowan, Cock by Shay Rowan, Bad Moult by John O’Neill, In The Time of Dragons by Joel Fildes, Sessions by by Lucy Hayes, Dark Noon provided by Factory International and Blithe Spirit by Clare Angel.
Circles & Stalls 