Chatterbox - still talking nonsense

 Apparently I saw 42 theatre productions in 2025, although I feel like I still missed loads.  Anyway, this is my pick of the year - totally subjective and I am making the rules to suit me.  I have written about each one of these earlier in the year so have given the links to those  reviews too. Best New Play Clarkston:   Considering I know very little about the opening up of the American West, this wasn't really a must see, and I initially booked because Heartstopper's Joe Locke was starring, and I was curious to see him on stage.  But actually, despite the unpromising subject matter, I found the play really interesting, with themes around small towns and lives vs big ideas, economic, historical and cultural forces, and this takes a look at where meaning does and should sit, with dextrous writing which wraps the ideas together so that each line has more than one meaning. InterAlia:   I loved Prima Facie and this play, by the same writer Suzie Miller, ...

This is an absurdist play from the 1950s by Eugène Ionesco in which all the people in a town gradually turn into rhinoceroses, so a slightly unusual premise to get our heads around.  This was a new production at the Almeida by Omar Elerian, which stripped a lot back.  At the opening of the play we are faced with a bare set, with just a curtain and the simplest of raised stage, and the cast, all except Berenger (Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù) dressed in clinical white outfits, meaning that there are few clues to what is going to happen.  We open by meeting the Provocateur (Paul Hunter) , who acts as the host and master of ceremonies for the evening, getting everyone hyped up with some dance movements that he uses again and builds upon during the play.   Then we get into the play proper, with stage directions given out loud by the Provocateur, always reminding us that this is a play and that the cast (and the audience too) are following instructions.  I loved the way ...