By James Hadley in London

Looking back over my London theatre-going in 2008, the productions which made the biggest impact were easily Robert Lepage's 'Lipsynch', Michael Grandage's production of Chekhov's 'Ivanov' featuring Kenneth Branagh amongst a stunning ensemble, and an experimental showing of a work called 'Cart Macabre' at Battersea Arts Centre. By James Hadley in London

Looking back over my London theatre-going in 2008, the productions which made the biggest impact were easily Robert Lepage's 'Lipsynch', Michael Grandage's production of Chekhov's 'Ivanov' featuring Kenneth Branagh amongst a stunning ensemble, and an experimental showing of a work called 'Cart Macabre' at Battersea Arts Centre.The first two productions reached such dizzy heights of artistic excellence that they stand head and shoulders above other works. And the fact that they were both sizeable, monumental works dealing with life, love and death also factors in their enduring impact.

In the case of 'Cart Macabre', what's made it stay in my mind has been its experiential nature. Being wheeled around in a cart in the dark with several unseen companions, intermittently exposed to theatrical and sensory tableaux, was a unique theatrical experience. In general I think the more a theatre experience engages you to become an experience within your own life - rather than that of fictional characters that you have watched - the more it stays with you in your memory. That's why I enjoy promenade, immersive theatre productions so much (despite loathing audience participation!).

Two other productions which would certainly make my top ten list of shows seen in 2008 I haven't yet written about in this blog. One was an import from France's Theatre du Chatelet: a revival of Leonard Bernstein's musical Candide, which caused a scandal upon its premiere for its ridiculing of the world's leading political leaders in a scene depicting them lounging around sunbathing in swimming trunks. The production, directed by Robert Carsen, enjoyed a second season at Milan's famous La Scala opera house, before being revived at London's Colisseum (just off Trafalgar Square) by the English National Opera.

The production was mostly criticised by critics for being heavy-handed and vacuous, but the audience seemed to adore it. And it was far and away the most provocative piece of theatre I have ever seen in an opera house. For instance, the song 'What a day for an auto-da-fe', which was written as a satire of the McCarthy era witch-hunts, is in this production developed into a jolly, all singing, all dancing showstopper featuring a stage full of klu klux klan members publicly assassinating free thinkers. There's something disturbingly effective about blending the somewhat Pollyanna traditions of American musical theatre with no holds barred political provocation. Another scene of the show was relocated to a Las Vegas strip joint, another song was delivered by a homeless man on the open highway, before being run over by dismissive motorists.

The original version of the show, based on Voltaire's novel, was set in Europe, but this revival was relocated to 1950s America. The proscenium arch of the theatre was masked by a huge '50s TV set frame, and archive footage of the golden age of Americana played throughout the overture. It's true that America does seem all too easy to satirise right now, and this production didn't hold back on any punches. It seemed to set out to trash all the iconic imagery of America, and did so with style, nowhere more so than in the song 'Glitter and Be Gay', which was restaged as a clone of the 'Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend' number from 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes'. Turning the lead female character into Marilyn Monroe makes it all the more affecting when she's later reduced to a trailer trash wife in the manner of Britney Spears. Isn't this closer to an appropriate update of the morning after of the American dream?

The other production I was thinking of was A Disappearing Number by Theatre du Complicite at the Barbican Theatre. I'd heard rave word of mouth about the previous production of this show in 2007, and Theatre du Complicite is one of those companies you keep hearing about. They were formed in 1993, and are now led by one of the three Lecocque-trained founding members, Simon McBurney, who directed this production. It won the Critics Circle and Evening Standard awards for Best Play in 2007, and the Olivier award for best play in 2008.

Most of Complicite's productions are devised, as was reflected in the innovatively theatrical ways of telling the story throughout this work. A contemporary story about a mathematics lecturer (played by one of my favourite English actors, Saskia Reeves) and an American businessman is interwoven with the true story of the Indian mathematical genius, Srinivasa Ramanujan, who was invited to Cambridge University in the 1910s. If you told me I was going to see a play about the beauty of mathematics, I probably wouldn't have booked, but this is what the play does indeed reveal: the romance and beauty of mathematical logic.

It's a production that's difficult to describe, as it jumped around between time periods in ways that were endlessly inventive. One of its innovations was to project moving imagery onto a whiteboard screen which actors could walk into - flipping it over so that the back-projected imagery continued, but now with the silhouette of the actor incorporated. There were evocative stagings of street scenes and train carriages in India, and a soundtrack by Nitin Sawhney was played live onstage throughout. There was great confidence in the way the production moved from location to location, and from a focus on intimate details of a developing romance to epic, mind-expanding principles of physics and mathematics. There was much in common with Lepage's 'Lipsynch', as the sheer artistic synthesis of all elements of the production was what I found myself admiring, alongside being highly engaged with a deeply human story. This balance between stylistic innovation and human engagement is something that has taken the company their 20 years to perfect, so I take some consolation from that.

Image: London's Colisseum

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Feel free to get in touch with any questions (or if you're planning a London visit and want some theatre recommendations) to jamesstuarthadley@gmail.com

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13/01/09