I watched 55 stage shows this year, and think I had a lower “hit” rate than normal, though it’s possible I’m just becoming more jaded. Here’s what I loved — and didn’t.

The undisputed highlight was The Manikins, a thrilling immersive play performed for a single audience member and probably the best thing I’ve seen since The Drowned Man or Roman Tragedies a decade ago. Like those productions, The Manikins was a startling work — one that fundamentally made me rethink what theatre could, or should, be. One of those shows I expect I’ll think about for the rest of my life.

Lots of this year’s best shows were immersive, in fact: Port of Entry, a lovely production in Chicago, has really stuck with me (I described it in May as having “the best immersive set design I’ve ever seen, bar none”), and Bound was the best Punchdrunk-esque production I’ve seen that wasn’t produced by Punchdrunk (read my full review of that and some other plays here).

As far as proscenium shows go, The Portrait of Dorian Gray was great, with a very clever use of video and live camera. The Years was also excellent, with the incredible Romola Garai a standout. And House, an Israeli-French production about a house in West Jerusalem, was a powerful (and devastating) watch — particularly given the timing of staging it this year, of course.

Three more highlights worth mentioning, all comedy: my colleague Cillian introduced me to Stamptown this year, and their late-night Fringe show was a delirious fever dream. MC Jack Tucker was my favourite part of the show, so I made sure to catch his solo show Comedy Stand Up Hour at Soho Theatre — which was an equally hilarious evening. But my Fringe highlight was Furiozo: Man Looking for Trouble, a surprisingly poignant clown show about toxic masculinity which was, somehow, also very funny.

Also great, in rough preference order: King Lear, The Lehman Trilogy (still excellent on my fourth viewing), The Hills of California, Mnemonic, Bluets, People Places and Things, The Other Place, The Importance of Being Earnest, Dr Strangelove, Alfie Brown: Open Hearted Human Enquiry, Macbeth (David Tennant), Look Back In Anger, Giant, Coriolanus, Or What’s Left Of Us, A Tupperware of Ashes, My English Persian Kitchen, Machinal,, Double Feature

Good/decent/fine: An Enemy of the People, Collaborator, Jordan Brookes: Fontanelle, Rhythm and Ruse, La Bayadère, Roots, Salt The Threshold, Where We Meet, The Last Show Before We Die, London Tide, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Ben Schwartz and Friends, The Comeuppance, Hadestown, Nachtland, Player Kings, The Haunting of Hoxton Hall, The Gods The Gods The Gods, Asi Wind: Incredibly Human, Red, Son of a Bitch

Walked out, or wish I had: Simon Godwin’s Macbeth, Darkfield’s Arcade, Wayne McGregor’s MADDADDAM, Robert Icke’s Oedipus, Waiting for Godot, Passing Strange, Boys From the Blackstuff