Sam Marlowe

David Oyelowo delivers an engaging central performance in a take on Shakespeare’s Roman tragedy, directed by Lyndsey Turner and also featuring Stephanie Street, Jordan Metcalfe, Pamela Nomvete, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith and Kemi-Bo Jacobs

Ben Whishaw and Lucian Msamati give precision-tooled performances in a delicate and desolate production of Samuel Beckett’s seminal drama

Revival of Tom Stoppard’s brainy comedy is slick, persuasively acted and too clever by half

Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey’s tough-minded musical transfers triumphantly to the West End, and features a phenomenal lead performance from Caissie Levy

Anna Maxwell Martin and James Corden star in a vivid state-of-the-nation snapshot from Joe Penhall and directed by Matthew Warchus

John Caird’s stage adaptation of Hayao Miyazaki’s Oscar-winning Studio Ghibli film falls short of enchantment

Sophie Treadwell’s astonishing 1928 Expressionist masterpiece comes to London with a phenomenal central performance from Rosie Sheehy

Directed by Eric Ting and starring Tamara Lawrance, Katie Leung and Anthony Welsh, this eerie drama of mortality and memory from Branden Jacobs-Jenkins exerts an insidious fascination

Gemma Whelan, Rhiannon Clements and Adele James star in writer Sarah Gordon and director Natalie Ibu's larky, surface-skimming drama about sibling rivalry between the famous literary sisters

Brian Cox and Patricia Clarkson are tremendous in Jeremy Herrin's production of Eugene O’Neill's hefty American classic

MJ the Musical review at the Prince Edward Theatre, London. The Michael Jackson jukebox biomusical by Lynn Nottage and Christopher Wheeldon, starring Myles Frost centred around the 1992 Dangerous tour

Sheridan Smith struggles to illuminate this weird new musical from Ivo van Hove and Rufus Wainwright based on John Cassavetes’ 1977 film

Tyrell Williams' exuberant drama of teenage male friendship triumphs in this West End transfer from the Bush

Billy Crudup dazzles as an imposter with an identity crisis in this slight but sinister monologue written by David Cale and directed by Leigh Silverman

Anaïs Mitchell and Rachel Chavkin’s mythological musical is an intermittently stunning trip down a road to nowhere, starring Grace Hodgett Young, Zachary James, Melanie La Barrie, Gloria Onitiri and Dónal Finn

Sarah Snook of Succession fame is astonishing in this dazzling adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s novel, directed by Kip Williams

Shamelessly sentimental jukebox musical tribute to Bob Geldof and the groundbreaking Live Aid charity concert

Affecting, impressionistic welter of migration stories from physical theatre innovators Gecko

Catherine Tate and David Threlfall struggle to enliven this flat-footed retread of the famous 1970s poltergeist case

Piercingly beautiful but elusive melancholy love story, with gorgeous music from Elvis Costello