Ma Rainey, King Lear, Harry Potter & More! The Top Five Shows in London in 2016

Defining productions of Tom Stoppard and August Wilson classics raised the bar high for revivals in a classics-heavy year that also found Glenda Jackson, of all people, taking on the title role in King Lear. All that plus Harry Potter all grown-up and Andrew Lloyd Webber at seemingly every turn: read on for a list of five of the year’s best shows.

1. MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM
August Wilson’s Chicago-set play launched the late dramatist’s career more than 30 years ago but was at no point better served than by the English director Dominic Cooke and an extraordinary National Theatre cast headed by O-T Fagbenle as the feral young trumpeter Levee and the formidable Sharon D. Clarke as Ma Rainey—the mother of the blues in a production that constituted close to the last word on this great play.

2. TRAVESTIES
A potential head-scratcher of a play was revealed to have a beating heart in the director Patrick Marber’s ravishing take on Tom Stoppard’s 1974 play about the political and cultural collisions afoot in 1917 Zurich while war is raging elsewhere. Tom Hollander stepped with fluency and flair into the demanding central role of Henry Carr that brought its originator, John Wood, a Tony Award in 1976, and the sublime supporting cast included Freddie Fox in gleeful form as the Dadaist poet and provocateur, Tristan Tzara. The production transfers to the West End in February: 2017 is looking pretty good already.

3. KING LEAR
At a time when many performers of her generation were calling it quits, the two-time Oscar winner Glenda Jackson returned to her first home, the theater, to play no less a role than Shakespeare’s once-mighty and now possibly mad monarch, King Lear. Her vocal authority kept in shape by 23 years as a member of parliament, Jackson fully inhabited a fiendishly demanding part and was also, at 80, that rare Lear who was also the correct age to play the part. Deborah Warner’s Old Vic production is eyeing a New York transfer: let us hope.

4. JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR
You couldn’t move for Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals on both sides of the Atlantic this year, starting in London with Glenn Close’s return to her career-defining part as Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard; the West End premiere of the buoyant School of Rock; and, a league apart, the director Timothy Sheader’s scorching alfresco production of the album-turned-rock musical, Jesus Christ Superstar. This notably tricky piece for once had brio and bite and an impassioned cast headed by Declan Bennett (Jesus) and the award-winning Tyrone Huntley (Judas) that seared the night sky. The good news: Regent’s Park is bringing the show back next summer for a second run.

5. HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD
Event theater doesn’t get more audacious than a two-part, nearly six-hour stage piece that takes one of the most beloved series of books ever written and moves its characters on in life, love and art. That’s to say, if the Harry Potter saga can transfix the screen, why not the stage, as well? And so it was that this newfound tale from the protean mind of J.K. Rowling gave us Hogwarts alumnus Harry Potter and his chums Hermione and Ron all grown up and with children—and parenting issues—all their own. John Tiffany’s savvy production of Jack Thorne’s script appealed both to Potter diehards and newbies, all of whom exited part one eager to return for more. Small wonder Broadway has been chomping at the bit and will get to feast on the show firsthand in 2018.