Most vital production
A magnificent troupe of life-size puppet animals travelled some 12,500 miles from the Congo basin to the Arctic Circle in response to the climate crisis. Created by the Walk Productions, the animals – kudu, giraffe, zebra – in The Herds were made from cardboard, cane and plywood. A three-metre-high elephant swayed slowly, manipulated by three puppeteers; vervet monkeys were frisked along by a single handler. The puppeteers – dancers, circus artists and actors – had 23 languages between them but they learned to breathe in synch. They were ambassadors for change and the imagination.
The Herds parades through Marseille in June on the troupe’s 12,500-mile journey
Most promising actors
Alby Baldwin, Ella Lily Hyland and Isabel Adomakoh Young lit up the Royal Court stage in Nick Payne’s The Unbelievers. The talent of the future vibrantly lined up beside the established glory of Nicola Walker.
Best sets
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In All My Sons (Wyndham’s, London, until 7 March), Jan Versweyveld, a longtime collaborator of the director Ivo van Hove, freed Arthur Miller’s play from pernickety naturalism, placing the action in an abstract setting against a glowing orb. For Porn Play, Yimei Zhao unforgettably transformed the Royal Court Upstairs into a vaginal pouch – squashy, with secret folds and a hole in the middle. At the Young Vic, Rajha Shakiry conjured up devastated post-invasion Iraq in Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo: ruins, a huge mural of Saddam Hussein, smoke rising from the depths.
Rising dramatists
Anoushka Lucas’s marvellous one-person show Elephant, first seen at the Bush three years ago, transferred to the Menier. Removing the back of her piano to expose its working parts, the Anglo-Indian-French-Cameroonian pianist-singer-writer disarmed and struck hard with her history of mahogany, ivory and colonial exploitation. Sophia Chetin-Leuner’s Porn Play, looking full on at women’s addiction to violent pornography, was vivid, nimbly written and fierce.
Most popular Beckett
The stalls were alive with the sound of Krapp’s Last Tape. Vicky Featherstone staged a finely restrained production with Stephen Rea in Dublin and the Barbican. At York Theatre Royal, Gary Oldman directed, designed and starred: shambling but precise. Meanwhile, Samuel West announced that in 2036, when he will be Krapp’s age (69), he will take the part, drawing on recordings he made when he was 39.
Best costumes
Sami Fendall’s designs for Lerner and Loewe’s Scottish fantasy Brigadoon – purple and saffron, the colours of heather and gorse, with a specially designed tartan and slashed New Look dresses – were an essential glowing ingredient of Drew McOnie’s light-as-a-feather production at Regent’s Park.
Sami Fendall’s designs for Lerner and Loewe’s Scottish fantasy Brigadoon
Best performances
Francesca Mills – ferocious, witty, finally desolating – remade the part of the so-often lustreless Ophelia in Robert Hastie’s production of Hamlet (in cinemas from 22 January 2026). Paapa Essiedu, gentle but convoluted, is superb as the stricken idealist in All My Sons. Kate Fleetwood soared in Into the Woods.
Adaptations: ups and downs
Jack Holden’s fleet adaptation of Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty was sold out at the Almeida before opening: Arty Froushan’s chilled composure was a particular treat. At Chichester, Kathleen Marshall’s production of Top Hat showed the difficulties of transferring screen to stage. Though accomplished, it was cumbersome compared to the exquisite Astaire-Rogers movie.
Best political drama
At the Young Vic, James Graham’s far-reaching drama Punch followed the real-life story of a youth who, having unintentionally killed a stranger with one blow, repaired his future when brought together with the dead man’s parents. First seen at Nottingham, where the assault took place, Adam Penford’s production featured a career-making performance from David Shields and made a clarion call for a shift in social policy.
Best boats
Against the odds, Rupert Goold’s Hamlet convincingly reimagined Elsinore as a seagoing vessel. A dangerously tilting deck; glaring, blue-tinged light; Luke Thallon dismantled by sorrow. Equally improbably, the French-Norwegian company Plexus Polaire triumphantly staged Moby Dick at the Barbican as part of MimeLondon. Black and white video of the sea; double bass, percussion and guitar conjuring the noise of small fish; the mighty whale gliding past like an enormous duvet.
Photographs by Mark Senior/Maïté Baldi for The Observer/Marc Brenner