CRITICS CHOICE: Top 10 New Plays 1 May 2015

10 Best New Plays in London

What Play should you see first in London?

We have compiled this list to save you the trouble of working it out! It's just our view - and everyone has one - based on our Reviewers' thoughts. We will update the list regularly so new productions get on your radar and when original casts change that is factored in.

Plays which have been running for more than three years are not included - this is a list for new or relatively new productions running in London.

So go see them!

1. Oppenheimer

Morton-Smith has written a masterpiece which Angus Jackson has cast and directed in a way which gives it full measure, lustre and power. No one here gives anything other than a first-class performance. John Heffernan, in the central role, with the bulk of the play squarely on his shoulders, is world class. He is magical, mercurial, magnificent.

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2. Carmen Disruption

At just over 90 minutes, this is a theatrical spectacle and tapestry as ethereal and vital as it is strange and incomprehensible. Simon Stephens throws those elements such as the destruction of community, the isolation of individuals, the globalisation and sterilisation of culture, the power of money and capitalist dreams, the despair that comes from non-intervention, together with the characters and some of the music and plot points from Bizet’s Carmen, into a blender, creating a dystopian present-day landscape where pretty much anything can and does happen. The poetic nuances fly through the writing such that return visits to see the production again are almost compulsory.

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Rosie Holden and Joel MacCormarck in Each His Own Wilderness. Photo: Richard Hubert Smith 3. Each His Own Wilderness

The Orange Tree theatre has established a unique niche for itself as a home for new writing and carefully chosen revivals of long-neglected repertoire. This production is a distinguished badge added to that reputation and another notable success for director Paul Miller and his creative team in their award-winning first season.

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Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma in Shaw's Man and Superman 4. Man and Superman

Front and centre, shouldering a Herculean workload of complicated, dense dialogue, is Ralph Fiennes in absolutely cracking form. He has unflagging energy and although he rattles the text at a remarkable speed, he gives full value to each word and makes clear, uncomplicated sense of every passage. He is phenomenal, like a bolt of electricity confined to the stage. Simon Godwin’s stunning production makes Shaw’s play, a philosophical tennis match of volleyed ideas and ideals, burst with wit, innovation and utter delight.

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Photo: Johan Persson. 5. The Audience

One of those rare theatrical experiences which embraces and delivers all of the possibilities in a rich, perfectly-pitched and played meditation on the UK Monarchy, the office of Prime Minister and the state of the evolving UK society…If all West End productions were this good, London would expire from sheer pleasure.

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6. Golem

You could be forgiven for thinking this was a fairytale, so delicate, amusing, but full of truths, is Golem. If Tim Burton did a live-action adult pantomime, this might be it.

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Joshua Jenkins and the cast of The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time. Photo: Brinkoff Mogenberg 7. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time Simon Stephens’ adaptation of Mark Haddon’s best-selling novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time received seven Olivier Awards in 2013, including Best New Play, Best Director, Best Lighting Design and Best Sound Design. BOOK TICKETS

Phoebe and Jonathan Pryce in Jonathan Munby's production of The Merchant Of Venice. Photo: Manuel Harlan 8. The Merchant Of Venice

Set firmly in its time, circa 1597, with costumes and accoutrements which establish an exotic, far away and, most importantly, bygone era, Munby avoids the great questions of the play and steers a course through the waters of sympathy, self-interest and capitalism. The result is a richly amusing take on the play, which is involving and clear, but which never achieves great heights of lyricism or drama, happily accepting “everyday” as its overall pulse. The high point of poetry for the evening comes with Jonathan Pryce’s heartfelt “Hath not a Jew eyes?” speech, the words wrenched from his very soul.

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9. Abyss

But in the end the tension between the daily count of the passage of time and the avoidance of narrative direction is too much to sustain and in the final sections we return to a more predictable expositional technique with a measure of relief. Moreover, the performances of the actors notably relax once the abstract, staccato almost hieratic formalism gives way to a more naturalistic presentation.

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10. Scarlet

Theatre Renegade’s tour-de-force examination of gender violence, Scarlet, is one of the tightest pieces of fringe theatre currently on the stage and not to be missed.

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