In A Bumper Year

As 2015 drew to a close, I noticed many of my fellow critics and bloggers were drawing up lists of the top shows that they had seen that year. I had planned to do this anyway so dipping into my computer files, the first thing I did was pull out anything I had seen with a 4* rating and above.

Thankfully it whittled down the list a good deal but I couldn't help but notice that 8 of the shows that I'd reviewed for either The Stage or Musical Theatre Review were musicals. Not just musicals, but new musicals. Most of them original and all of them appearing for the first time in front of a paying audience.

When I realised this, I wrote them up joyfully for Musical Theatre Review here.

This is why it really shocked me when the Off-West End Awards announced its finalists for 2015. The new musical category featured only a single nomination. It strikes me that neither the assessors nor the judges at Off-West End are able to fully commit to judging on this category, otherwise there would have been several other names in the final.

Either they are not visiting the venues - I notice that the Southwark Playhouse gets the most nods in the 2015, which is also where the sole nomination for Best New Musical took place - or they are simply not interested in engaging in what is a rich source of new writing.  

My list includes the London Theatre Workshop, Above The Stag, King's Head, Pleasance, Landor, Arcola and the Theatre Royal Stratford East - hardly out-of-the-way venues! The subject matter varies from broad satire to high drama and in 19 years of reviewing the fringe, I don't think I've seen such a bumper year for new musical theatre writing.

The Off-West End Awards may fulfil a need to celebrate the best work on the fringe, but here I think the award is sadly lacking. If it can't judge a category properly then remove it from the list. I have been advised that the Off-West End Awards are about to launch a Best Musical Director Category -  the first of its kind. This is a huge step forward not least for musical directors but I do wonder how evenly can and will it be judged?