War Horse (National’s Olivier Theatre, opened October 17, 2007, currently in rep)
The ultimate test for a critic is always: “Would I pay to see this show?” Straight after coming home from seeing War Horse, the now annual National Theatre production based on a children’s book and designed for family audiences, I went online to book tickets to see it again with my entire immediate family. It provides a thrilling, occasionally chilling, journey into the darkness of the First World War, viewed from a highly unusual perspective: that of the horses that were also conscripted into the war effort. This is poignantly personalised in 16-year-old Albert’s relentless journey to find his beloved horse, Joey, who has been sold to the cavalry and shipped off to France to fight. Nick Stafford (adapting Michael Morpurgo’s novel) and co-directors Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris have created an instant but timeless classic of theatre craft that tells its haunting story with a magical and vivid originality. That’s partly thanks to beautiful horses themselves, which are brought to life-size realisations in brilliantly theatricalised giant wood and metal puppet figures, created by South Africa’s Handspring Puppet Company. But everything about this production has an engrossing magnificence. And I cried all over again watching it a second time.

The Seagull (Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, opened January 25, 2007, closed March 17, 2007)
Chekhov’s The Seagull is a merry-go-round of masterfully etched characters doomed to cycles of unrequited longings. In Ian Rickson’s superb farewell production from running the Royal Court, a stunning cast brought a shimmering intensity of feeling to their hopeless encounters. The dreadful anguish of life on a dull Russian country estate was magnificently articulated by a cast who were thrillingly alive to every nuance and echo of the past and present, from Kristin Scott Thomas’ grand actress Arkadina—impervious to the careless hurt she is inflicting on her troubled son Konstantin (The Office’s Mackenzie Crook, in a stunning shift of gear)—to Peter Wight as her slowly-dying brother Sorin. This was the revival of the year

My Child (Royal Court Jerwood Theatre, Downstairs, opened May 9, 2007, closed June 2, 2007)
If both new plays and new musicals were in notably short supply in the West End, the Royal Court under Rickson’s successor Dominic Cooke re-established itself as the premiere address to seek out brilliant young writers and also directors. While Polly Stenham’s bruising domestic drama That Face, written when she was just 19, was a rivetingly assured premiere in the Theatre Upstairs, 26-year-old Mike Bartlett’s debut play in an unrecognisably reconfigured Theatre Downstairs was my play of the year, proving once again that a play doesn’t have to be long to have a big impact—short can also be shattering. My Child was just 40 minutes long, but it provided one of the most brilliant and dramatically compressed experiences on the London stage. A searing study of a desperate dad trying to hold onto access to his young son when the child’s mother from whom he has separated tries to prevent him from maintaining it, scenes bled seamlessly into each other to give the play a compulsive momentum. Sacha Wares proved she is a director to watch—as she expertly negotiated a gripping sense of danger and loss in both this and Debbie Tucker Green’s Generations (seen at the Young Vic this year).

The Lord of the Rings (Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, opened June 19, 2007, currently running)
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane has seen some astonishing spectacles in its time, from a helicopter landing on its stage in Miss Saigon to a swastika forming itself out of a swathe of chorus dancers in The Producers. But nothing has been quite as ambitious, or literally transporting, as the journey to Middle Earth that is embarked upon in the new stage version of The Lord of the Rings. I was knocked out by the amazing stagecraft and dramatic sweep of Matthew Warchus’ production when I originally saw it open in Toronto in 2006. It is even better now: it has been substantially revised, clarified and somewhat shortened, running at just over three hours instead of closer to four. Though it still suffers, perhaps inevitably, from a surfeit of exposition, there’s also exhilaration, too, with the stage kept in constant motion thanks to Rob Howell’s spectacular set and costume designs. A series of breathtaking scenic transformations are summonsed from a revolving series of independently moving platforms, and he has also created the strange, troubling figures like the Black Riders, Orcs and a giant spider that spreads its tentacles over the entire stage.

Much Ado About Nothing (National’s Olivier Theatre, opened December 18, 2007, currently in rep)
At the end of a year that has saw the likes of Daniel Radcliffe, Orlando Bloom and Ewan McGregor causing even more of a storm at the stage door than they have at the box office, it was a particular thrill to welcome two genuine stage stars back to their home theatre, the National, to prove that they are box office gold as well. Of course you know you are safe hands when those actors are of the always-astonishing calibre of Simon Russell Beale and Zoë Wanamaker, but director Nicholas Hytner has paired them more dangerously and unpredictably as romantic leads who find a late-blooming love with each other in Much Ado About Nothing. Wanamaker and Russell Beale’s maturity delivers an unexpected depth and charge to Beatrice and Benedick’s guarded romantic feelings that subverts their own (and our) expectations of them. They have been hurt before by each other, and are not going to easily risk it again. “Love me? Why?” Beale’s Benedick enquiries, in disbelief that anyone could ever want to. He has long ago resolved not to trust such possibilities and live a bachelor instead. Wanamaker is as captivating as Judi Dench can be and with whom she is fast moving up in the ranks of beloved leading actresses to equal: she shares with her an immaculate comic timing but also the kind of fearless emotional commitment that exposes her very nerves.

Take a look at Matt Wolf's Top Five Performances of the Year!