After watching new productions at a rate of about four a week, our theatre critic presents the brilliantly good, the excruciatingly bad and the movingly sad of this year
HOLLYWOOD has its Oscars and Broadway its Tonys. Here, based on 200 nights spent in theatres in 2017, are the Billies: my idiosyncratic selection of the best and worst of the tumultuous past 12 months.
Best new play
It’s been a big year for live animals on stage, with goats and dogs making stellar appearances. It’s not just because Jez Butterworth’s The Ferryman includes real rabbits and a goose in the cast that it gets my vote, it’s because the play encompasses so much: a Northern Irish political thriller, a study of unspoken love and a Thomas Hardy-like evocation of timeless rural rituals.
In an outstanding year for new plays— Albion, Ink, Girl from the North Country and Consent—Mr Butterworth’s play Theatre Michael Billington takes the prize (as it did at this month’s London Evening Standard Theatre Awards).
Worst new play
It pains me to say this, as I’m a long-standing admirer of his work, but Sir Alan Ayckbourn’s The Divide was the year’s most crushing disappointment. This futuristic drama, set in a world of enforced sexual segregation in which the species is continued by artificial insemination, occupied six energy-draining hours of one’s time at the Edinburgh Festival and is destined to have a brief afterlife at the Old Vic. Sir Alan’s genius is for exposing the absurdities of the here and now rather than for taking the road to dystopia.
Most striking newcomer
If one good thing came out of The Divide, it was the emergence of Erin Doherty. It fell to her to convey the sweetness and sadness of a woman who saw herself as a reborn Jane Eyre. Miss Doherty went on to enhance her reputation as the eponymous heroine of My Name is Rachel Corrie at the Young Vic, in which she played a young American activist crushed by an Israeli army bulldozer.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der December 27, 2017-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der December 27, 2017-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
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Kitchen garden cook - Apples
'Sweet and crisp, apples are the epitome of autumn flavour'
The original Mr Rochester
Three classic houses in North Yorkshire have come to the market; the owner of one inspired Charlotte Brontë to write Jane Eyre
Get it write
Desks, once akin to instruments of torture for scribes, have become cherished repositories of memories and secrets. Matthew Dennison charts their evolution
'Sloes hath ben my food'
A possible paint for the Picts and a definite culprit in tea fraud, the cheek-suckingly sour sloe's spiritual home is indisputably in gin, says John Wright
Souvenirs of greatness
FOR many years, some large boxes have been stored and forgotten in the dark recesses of the garage. Unpacked last week, the contents turned out to be pots: some, perhaps, nearing a century old—dense terracotta, of interesting provenance.
Plants for plants' sake
The garden at Hergest Croft, Herefordshire The home of Edward Banks The Banks family is synonymous with an extraordinary collection of trees and shrubs, many of which are presents from distinguished friends, garnered over two centuries. Be prepared to be amazed, says Charles Quest-Ritson
Capturing the castle
Seventy years after Christian Dior’s last fashion show in Scotland, the brand returned under creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri for a celebratory event honouring local craftsmanship, the beauty of the land and the Auld Alliance, explains Kim Parker
Nature's own cathedral
Our tallest native tree 'most lovely of all', the stately beech creates a shaded environment that few plants can survive. John Lewis-Stempel ventures into the enchanted woods
All that money could buy
A new book explores the lost riches of London's grand houses. Its author, Steven Brindle, looks at the residences of plutocrats built by the nouveaux riches of the late-Victorian and Edwardian ages
In with the old
Diamonds are meant to sparkle in candlelight, but many now gather dust in jewellery boxes. To wear them today, we may need to reimagine them, as Hetty Lintell discovers with her grandmother's jewellery
