2019 Wrap-Up: Best London Performances of the Year

Newcomers and veterans were both given chances to shine on the London stage this year. Below, listed in no particular order, are five performances for which we will have fond memories of well into 2020—and beyond.

Richard Gadd in Baby Reindeer
A Scottish comedian well known on the stand-up circuit, Richard Gadd wrote and appeared in arguably the year’s most chilling play. Baby Reindeer is a chronicle of what it has been like in recent years to be the focus of a stalker—an obsessive here named only as “Martha,” who, according to the actor-author, may be walking among us still. Avoiding self-pity in favor of a degree of probing self-examination, Gadd proved compulsively watchable in a play that made us want to forswear social media—if not most of humankind—for a long while.

Lucian Msamati in “Master Harold” … and the boys
Lucian Msamati has appeared in Game of Thrones, but reminded us of his preeminence as a theater actor in the very fine National Theatre revival of “Master Harold”…and the boys. The actor resisted any temptation to sentimentalize the character of Sam, the elder of two waiters in the employ of the “master Harold” of the title. The performance was both compassionate and wise, prickly and funny, in an Apartheid-era play whose lessons about hatred beginning at home are even more relevant today.

Joanna Riding in Follies
Replacements don’t normally figure on this list, but what one got with two-time Olivier winner Joanna Riding was a makeover of Follies; she took over for Imelda Staunton in the National Theatre’s much-lauded revival of Stephen Sondheim’s musical. (It has since been announced that the production’s director, Dominic Cooke, will shepherd Follies to the big screen.) Playing the psychologically bruised Sally Durant Plummer, Riding built her performance to a heartrending rendition of “Losing My Mind” that left us lost in admiration. Brava!

Maggie Smith in A German Life
As proof that there’s no age limit on greatness, along came Dame Maggie Smith. She turns 85 years old this month and recently came back to the stage after a 12-year absence, in an impressive 100-minute solo show. The play's disturbing subject matter is the banality of evil as refracted through the story of Brunhilde Pomsel, personal secretary and stenographer to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. Jettisoning her gift for withering wit frequently on display in Downton Abbey, the acting legend gave a line-perfect performance that simply must be seen in New York, and soon.

Sam Tutty in Dear Evan Hansen
How do you follow a performance that has entered the zeitgeist? If you’re Sam Tutty, the gifted 21-year-old who made his West End debut in the London bow of Dear Evan Hansen—you simply go your own way from Ben Platt, the Tony-winning originator of the title role—and hope that audiences will hang on your every note. Indeed, the appealing Tutty has made the deceptive Evan so fully his own that you wonder whether he in time will become a further benchmark by which this part is measured. For now, given that the show’s London iteration is still quite new, one can only guess what awards await Tutty as they once awaited Platt.