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MickeyJoTheatre
the BEST theatre Mickey-Jo saw in 2024 | Mickey-Jo's favourite shows from the West End, Broadway and beyond
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Mickey Jo
So having truly started the year with just unmitigated negativity, I thought it would be a good idea if I sat down and actually told you about the theater that I enjoyed last year. Last year, 2024. Weird to say. Oh my God. Hey Everybody, welcome to 2025. This is not the first video I'm sharing here on my theatre themed YouTube channel or on podcast platforms in 2025, but it is the first one that I am filming. It is a new year, it is a new month and I am still thinking about last year because we have a little more rounding up to finish off yet. Told you about the theater that I loved last year, aka my favorite shows of 2024 plays, musicals seen around the globe. I saw. What did I say in there? Like264 shows somewhere in that region. Not a round number whatsoever. Kind of makes me want to aim for 300. But also I'm already very tired from the amount of shows I saw last year. I feel like if anything I should do slightly less. Let's do 250 in 2025. That makes sense. Anyway, if you haven't yet seen my most recent video, it's all about the theater which disappointed me in 2024. But there is plenty more which I en I'm going to be sharing more shows today in this one that I did in that one. And as I said in that video, there is a lot that we can learn about, you know, theatrical shortcomings, but there is more that we can gain, more that we can be inspired by, in great work, in exciting work, in brilliant work. And not just as audience members and theatre goers, but also theatre makers and performers and writers get inspired by these brilliant shows and it creates a theatrical ripple effect that then fosters exciting new work. Now I shan't keep you in this introductory section much longer, but if you do enjoy today's video and you would like to hear about the shows which I either love or hate in 2025, make sure you are subscribed here on YouTube or following me on podcast platforms. There will be many more reviews coming very soon. I am very excited to start digging into 2025 theatre around the world. Before then though, let's take one final backwards glance at 2024, specifically the shows which I loved. And as you are listening to these, feel free to comment with your thoughts about shows as well as letting us know which shows you loved in 2024. What was your favorite show of the year? Let us know in the comments. Here are mine so I didn't do the worst ones in order. I am going to do these ones in order because we love to count down to a number one show of the list. Depending on which day of the week you asked me, these rankings would change. So it's all a little bit flexible. But we're going to do my top 15, which is very conservative, actually. And in 15th place, we are neither in New York nor London. We're actually heading to Paris for a brand new production of Les Miserables at Theatre du Chatelet. Here is what I had to say about the show when I saw it just over a month ago. This doesn't feel like grand, glorious, clean Les Mis. This felt more down to earth, more gritty. It felt like the dirt under the West End production's fingernails. I mean that in a wonderful, appreciative, complimentary way, because I think Les Mis probably should feel like that. It would be disingenuous for it to feel anything other than authentic. To that end, they fly French flags alongside the red revolutionary flag at the end of Act 1. This is one of the most powerful moments in the thing. Members of the company left the stage and came down into the aisles of the stalls, waving flags, singing. And it was to be surrounded by that, for that to be among us, sort of democratizing it, I thought was staggering. I thought that was a fantastic choice. Inspired even. This one probably has a little bit of an unfair advantage, just for me personally, because I love Les Mis. I have a history with Les Mis. I think it's an incredible piece of musical theatre. Seeing it there was so incredibly special and I found the experience so rewarding, both as a fan of the show as well as as a critic. To get to analyse it on so many different fronts because of the new French lyrics, the largely new French lyrics. I apologize for the misrepresentation of that idea in the video. I kept calling it a new translation and it's not because the show, of course, was originally written in French, then heavily adapted and reworked for the English version that is now widely known. And this is a reworking of many of the original French lyrics as well as addition new lyrics. But it's not, strictly speaking, a translation of the English. In every instance, in some instances it is, but by and large it's not. But it was remarkably special, revolutionary even. At number 14, we're next heading to Off Broadway, where we had another bold new interpretation of a musical which I love, but as you've never seen it before, I am talking about the Sensational Cat's the Jellicle Ball. Here is what I thought about it. But when it comes to taking a piece of theatre and recontextualizing it, that is taking it out of the setting that it was originally written in and putting it into a different one, which is what has happened here. You only need one strong element to tether it to that new world, I think. And this whole competitive idea in these different categories with ballroom culture is enough to take cats from where it originally was to this new setting. And they do just still sort of feel like these mysterious and intriguing and colorful and exotic creatures of the night. And honestly, there's enough crossover language with, like, Fierce and Kitty Girl that it somehow completely works. Cat, kitty, cat, cat, cat and whatnot. I am so glad I had the chance to see this. It was a little bit touch and go because I didn't think I was originally going to get to New York over the summer, and then we did after going to Canada. I had a great time at this. Just the joy that radiated out of this show. I don't think, as some people have said, that this is how Cats should always be. Henceforth, I am a defender of the original cats. But I love this. I love a big swing. I love a recontextualization. I love to see authentic queer culture on stage. And it was so cleverly done. It's so brilliantly brought together these different elements. And I hope that this Cats, the Jellicle Ball, gets to come back in some way. I mean, it worked so perfectly at that venue at the Paramount Performing Arts Center Off Broadway. I don't know if the ambition is to take it to the Circle in the Square on Broadway. I think if that is the case, they're probably going to wait until after Sunset Boulevard has done what it needs to do with this year's Tonys and whatnot. And maybe they'll bring it in maybe next summer. Maybe that's one of the next shows we can expect to see in 2025. Next up, a play I saw on both sides of the Atlantic, a play I saw three times this year, and every single time it had a completely different poster design. I am talking about Jez Butterworth's the Hills of California. Who these people are and where they are and the nature of what this family is is fleshed out with such thoroughness. It's a world that you can really live in and enjoy living in. The dialogue moves and flows with a realistic conversational familiarity. You don't feel the drive of these characters to try and get to the point, because the playwrigh heavy handedly trying to articulate something. It is all very real and very genuine, sometimes frustratingly so. But like in those other plays, after a little while we get these big revelations that change our understanding of what it is that we are looking at. And suddenly what it is that you thought this play was just becomes a component of a slightly different story. Now I have loved this more and more every time that I saw it. I had to go see it on Broadway to find out about the substantial changes to the third act which I spoke about. If you want to know more about those in my recent Plays on Broadway review roundup video. But the writing is so thorough and the characters are so fleshed out, the relationships between them and how they distort and it's such a representation of this fractured family. Laura Donnelly's performance as dual characters is astonishing. The direction by Sam Mendes. Everything about this was just remarkable. I hope that it gets recognized at the Tony Awards next year. It could come back to the West End in this slightly updated version of the script. I guess that's a possibility. I also wouldn't be surprised if this got filmed in some capacity in an adaptation, either for TV or as a movie. I'd watch that next up. Not a new play by any stretch of the imagination, but new to me because I didn't see it the first time around. This was people, places and things which, having been this huge success previously in the West End, after initiating at the National Theatre, came back to the Trafalgar Theatre in London starring Denise Gough. Here is what I had to say about it.
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Guest Speaker
There is one particular scene that crystallises the entire effing thing for me where Emma is talking about the irony, I guess, of her career as an actress and certain things she's experienced in her career. And it's this whole allegory that opens the entire thing up, where her being an actress is so vitally important to.
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Mickey Jo
The play because that's the same thing.
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Guest Speaker
That they're doing in group therapy. And it's not just the small detail of them rehearsing conversations that might happen with their loved ones, with people they have harmed in their past once they leave. But it's the entire concept of what it means to lead a better life and become a better person. And the rehearsal for that characterization of yourself and for that lifestyle.
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Mickey Jo
An utterly remarkable play, an utterly incredible performance. This never went to Broadway. Interestingly enough, it went off Broadway, but it never made it all the way. I mean, a lot of plays do this, don't necessarily have the ambition to go to Broadway or don't, for whatever reason. The good news is that it has been professionally filmed for National Theatre at home. So you can watch this at your convenience. And I think it's an incredible resource both for documenting Duncan McMillan's interpretation of this process, of the rehabilitation process, but also for actors to watch this, to watch this incredible central performance by Denise Gough and just that moment where the floor falls out from underneath you in the theatre. Incredible. Next at number 11. I always like to feature one of the year's best concert productions and this year that was Pippin in Concert at Theatre Royal Drury Lane. Now, I love Pippin. I am a big fan of this material and I wasn't sure whether this was going to be brilliant because these staged concert productions of musicals have had some mixed success, but this was fantastic. Here is what I thought about it. I love that they trusted the material enough to just do Pippin in all of its oddity, in all of its strangeness, in all of its flamboyance and exuberance, without feeling like they had to put this big concept onto it that may or may not work. This is exactly what I want from a semi staged concert because we had the full orchestra on stage, the brilliant and always glorious sounding London Musical Theatre orchestra. This, which had costuming and had choreography and people weren't holding scripts, but also didn't really have much of a set because it didn't really need one. Worked on multiple levels because it was perfect as a concert. But it also meant that they didn't need to ask difficult questions about what this version of Pippin was going to look like. They just did the material and honestly, what great material it is. Now this, I believe, was also getting filmed at the performance that I watched, but I do wonder if it could spawn some kind of a more substantial future life. Not necessarily with exactly the same casting, but even just in this version, it understood the ethos and the mood of the show better than many productions I have seen previously. This really got what Pippin was and if rumours are to be believed, then a certain theater company who own a lot of buildings on either side of the Atlantic, were exploring the possibility of putting together of building a Pippin revival with some dual star casting, in the same vein as the recent Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, maybe even with Alex Newell who starred in this concert production. I'm just saying what I've heard. I don't know, that by all accounts seems long enough ago that it didn't come to fruition. But I would Love if it did at some point down the line. In at number 10 we have one of my favorite plays from Broadway this year, Prayer for the French Republic. And I love a Joshua Harmon play. I love a play filled with fiery debate from similar and yet opposed perspectives. I love topical conversation that can really get into the nuance of something contentious, which is exactly what this was. I would cut to a clip of me reviewing it from earlier in the year, but I never did. Not because I didn't want to, but because with a lot of review deadlines, I prioritized the ones that I had been officially invited to review. And for Prayer for the French Republic, I was not. I bought my own ticket. And so I will tell you a little bit about this now. This was a play about a family, a Jewish family living in Paris and considering the possibility of moving to Israel amidst rising anti Semitism. And this notion begins as a half baked possibility that isn't taken seriously by everyone and begins to gain a little bit of ground. But there is substantial debate because there is an extended family member visiting them and she has a very different perspective on the moral implications of moving to the Middle East. We also get these very valuable flashback sequences that return us to the years following the Second World War and the return of some of the family members to that home after having experienced atrocities, Just contextualizing everything about each of their feelings to do with religion and with culture and with family. There are so many different elements of all of this and of their Jewishness and their Jewishness in Paris specifically. And I just think it's a really relevant component of the ongoing conversation around the culture and around the Jewish identity and around the Middle East. And I appreciated how broad and encompassing of the different perspectives and the challenges within that that it was. If I'm making it sound like something that is singularly focused on one particular side of an ongoing conflict, it really wasn't. And it was also funny and fiery in the way that all of those Joshua Harmon plays are. The cast were outstanding, particularly Betsy Adam and Francis Benhamou. Incredible performances. Just a revelatory piece of theatre. I loved it and I think it represents a conversation that is enduringly worth having. I would love to see this mounted somewhere in the uk, potentially somewhere like the Old Vic or the Young Vic or the Hampstead even. I would love to see Prayer for the French Republic in London. In at number nine we have a piece I didn't think I was gonna like this much because it's not usually my genre. This was a dance show that may or may not have been a musical. There was a lot of pointless conversation around this idea. This was illinois, at the St. James Theatre on Broadway. The premise of the thing is quite simple. We meet these characters together on a hike in the woods. They have created a sort of a sense of community. It invokes a campfire and storytelling. In that sense, they share daydreams and aspects, aspirations through these imagined dance sequences that they share in. I love a piece of theatre that establishes its rules and can be very structured and formulaic in this way. Before we pass to our central protagonist, who shares an extended chapter of his life and this mental health struggle which becomes the main focus of the show. But the way that this is depicted is so utterly heartbreaking without being visceral, without being graphic, but at all times being very clear about how it is motivated. And something about the simple, unspoken storytelling language of contemporary dance depicted this simple act the most beautifully, heartbreakingly, painfully. But truthfully, I think I've ever seen on stage. This had to make the best Shows of the year list because I was just so profoundly affected by it. I thought it was beautiful, I thought the dance was stunning and striking, but just the things that they managed to represent and at its core, just simple, honest, emotional storytelling that will always be my favorite thing to see on stage. When we can just strip right back to this most essential thing of what theatre is. And it's this group of people meeting around a campfire, sharing stories as our protagonist develops the courage to articulate his own difficult experience. All told through dance. And then we can see that the music is beautiful and, you know, just rich enough in its lyrics, in its themes. Another one I think definitely should and probably will come to London. I expect we could see this somewhere like the South Bank Centre or Sadler's Wells or the Barbican, even. I would love to see this show in London and just more places around the world because it kind of. It can transcend language, really. In At Number eight, a recent arrival to the Ambassadors Theatre in the West End, the Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Here is what I had to say in my very recent video review. What I love is the moments that.
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Co-Host
They choose to shine a light on within Benjamin's lifetime. And it's a little mathematical, but it's also hugely emotional. We see this initial meeting between himself and alone. We see the moment where they come to get to know each other a little better. We see the moment where they overlap.
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Mickey Jo
And where they are, for the first.
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Co-Host
And only time in both of their lifetimes, the same age. We then see the sort of mirror images of this when he is as young as she once was and she is the age he was when they first met. Both John and Claire have this sort of a magical quality on stage. There's something about his smile and something about her eyes that really draw us in as an audience and the spontaneity of her acting choices. Everything is so present and so in the moment. And Benjamin is constantly concerned with his past and his future and the notion of tomorrow and what that looks like for him. And it's so necessary for the woman he would fall in love with that she isn't now.
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Mickey Jo
I had enjoyed this show previously off West End at the Southwark Playhouse, but I don't know that it really captured my heart in the the same way that it did when I saw it recently in the West End. I think it's beautiful. I think, again, stirring. Also a proper, quintessentially British musical. Something about these actor musician shows where you see this ensemble cast on stage. Again, just simple traditional storytelling, sharing in this communal process, this theatrical process with two exceptional performances at the heart of the thing. This right now is probably my biggest recommendation in the West End, especially if you are coming to see something in the world of musical theatre and something of extraordinary quality. You want to see really great musical theatre right now in London that's original. I know it's called the Curious Case of Benjamin Button, but it's not based on the film or the book. It only retains the idea of him aging in reverse. Go and see this show. Support this show because it's not as obviously marketable as a lot of other things. But I've been talking a lot about these shows and their future lives or their potential future lives. This one is on right now and we need to go and see it right now. Go see the Curious Case of Benjamin Button in the West End this month, this week. See it today in at number seven. We are heading now right back to the beginning of the year when I caught, towards the end of its run, the motive and the cue. Gosh, I loved this. And here is why. Now, the absolute genius here from Jack Thorne is the particular section of Hamlet that he's chosen because what they are reciting is the moment where Hamlet himself becomes director to a play within a play and to a group of players. Richard is playing Hamlet as director while playing at being director, thinking that he knows better than the actual director, Gielgud. Gielgud is trying to cling to the idea that he can actually direct this unwieldy actor and remembering what it was to be the actor in this role himself. There's a lot going on. The dynamic between these two men, which is the focus of the entire play, is never predictable. It isn't obvious at the beginning that they're going to have this immense falling out. It sort of creeps in steadily now. I speculated in that review that this was bound to transfer to Broadway. And a year later, I haven't heard anything else on that front. I don't know why it wouldn't. I mean, it had various stars in the cast who potentially will have scheduling things, and so maybe it yet will head to Broadway with that company, but I don't know. I think it would be a terrific choice if it did. I loved this play. I thought it was such a brilliant insight, it into the actor's process and the way that we really, with these characters were able to investigate and sort of mine the exact characterization of this one interpretation of Hamlet, a role that has been portrayed however many different ways, however many different times, really, to allow the audience into that forensic process of getting into this particular iteration of that character. I thought it was fascinating in At Number Six, a musical on Broadway that I have talked about a lot. You will not be surprised to hear me saying this. I am talking about Suffs. Here is what I had to say about it. Chiefly among the show's intentions is to get across the scale and insistence of this movement, which it does very well. The thing that's going to be important to me is its intersectionality, and that's what it does really, really well. It takes into account so many things, it is open to criticizing it. Protagonist. When Alice Paul moves forward with a march that is going to be segregated, that's going to be racially exclusionary, the narrative does not flinch away from shaming her for this. All of it serves to develop these characters in a way I haven't seen done in a very long time. It's been a long time since I've been to a musical that manages to develop this many different characters simultaneously and feels as though it does justice to all of them. There is a small romantic subplot. There are nods to other things about characters, lives. We get so much detail in this. There is so much of it packed into the book now. I was sad, but not necessarily surprised when Suffs announced that it would close on Broadway. In fact, this week, Suffs is closing on Broadway. I had hoped that it would go on to become hugely successful, but I'd also hoped that that would happen amidst the inauguration of the first female President of the United States. And I think it would be. I mean, I can't imagine how difficult that first show was after the US election. And I think for Suffs to have continued, it would be important and it would be of extraordinary value. But I think it also would have been incredibly difficult for the company and also for audiences. I think it would have become interpreted really a very different way. Again, still important, still valuable, but painful nonetheless. It is, however, going to endure because I believe it has been professionally filmed and also it's going to have a legacy in subsequent productions around the us. I think Suffs is going to be huge in North America. A lot of people have been asking would it come to the uk, and that's a little bit difficult simply because, you know, you put a show called Suffs over here and people would expect it to be about the story of British suffrage, which would have, you know, very similar plot points, actually, but with different characters. And there's another musical called Sylvia which tells a similar story, but about the Pankhursts. Anyway, I loved you, Sufs. I will not forget Yusufs have a lovely final few performances on Broadway. Then we get to the top five. And for the number five slot, we are heading to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where I, years after everyone else, had already fallen in love with it, saw the play Every Brilliant Thing, another one by Duncan MacMillan. And here is what I had to say in my Fringe roundup video. It's about a young boy who, after.
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Guest Speaker
One of his mother's suicide attempts, starts compiling a list in childhood about every extraordinary thing worth living for in the world. And as you'd expect, they're very juvenile at the beginning, sort of delightfully adolescent, like ice cream and staying up late to watch films and seeing people falling over. And then he rediscovers this list later in life a few times and it becomes about older, more meaningful things.
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Mickey Jo
But there's so many pieces of paper.
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Guest Speaker
Hand to the audience to read out things. When he said items from the list, those are all creators by members of the audience. There are a couple of roles played by members of the audience. I have never seen better community building in the theatre than in this space. Instant standing ovation, huge amount of love.
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Mickey Jo
This went beyond just a great piece of theatre and was also this inspiring life event like. I became a changed human being for having experienced this show. The warmth in that space and the trust and the communion that was established in the audience. It was really special, one of those genuinely special theatrical experiences where you feel bonded to all of these strangers that you're sat alongside in these wildly uncomfortable little seats in an improvised yellow tent at the back of a medical lecture theatre in Edinburgh, such as the Madness of the Fringe. But it was so special. I, like I mentioned, one of the last people on earth finding out how special this piece of theatre is. But I am so glad that I saw it. Next up at number four, staying at the Fringe with my favourite show from the festival this. This year, which I then caught again at the Park Theatre in London. This was Cyrano. And if you haven't heard me talk about this extensively already, here are some more words.
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Guest Speaker
Stripped back to its most essential parts. Going a little bit deliberately off piste.
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Mickey Jo
And kind of pulling away from the.
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Guest Speaker
Traditional Cyrano de Bergerac story, taking exactly.
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Mickey Jo
What it needed to in order to reframe this as a story about a brilliant, inspiring, intellectual queer woman whose gender was the thing separating her from the.
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Guest Speaker
Love that she perceived herself to be worthy of, which kind of, like, took.
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Mickey Jo
This very classic story and made it.
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Guest Speaker
Newly relevant to an extraordinary breadth of audience. This was damn near a perfect theatrical experience. The language of this, the performances of this, the staging, the way that it invoked its audience, that was so celebratory.
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Mickey Jo
It was so sad when it needed to be. I loved Cyrano so, so much. It's currently on at the Park Theatre for another week or so. I think Virginia Gay is something of a genius. I love how smart it is, how accessible it is. At the same time, I love how justified it is as a queer reinterpretation of this classic story of Cyrano de Bergerac. It feels so grounded in such truth, in the idea of this existence as a queer person, having every tool in your arsenal to forge relationship with the object of your desires, except for this body that you are in. And I had the recent joy of interviewing Virginia Gay and speaking to her about this, where she spoke about that being an experience that also transcends the queer experience as well on so many fronts. This is such a brilliant piece of theatre. It is also, as she describes it, it is hot, it is funny, it is wildly entertaining. It does that same thing where it builds community in the audience. They're handing out poetry, they're giving you streamers and party hats. It's wonderful. It's poetry and it's romance and it's life with all of its flaws and complications. There is so much of the human experience in Cyrano. I think it's astounding. I hope that it takes over the entire world New York next. Back to Australia, back to London again. Film it, do it everywhere. In at number three. I guess this makes this my favourite musical I saw on the West End this year. We have two strangers carry a cake across New York, which I saw at the Criterion Theatre. Here is what I thought about it.
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Guest Speaker
It's modern, the lyrics are funny and character driven, but there is something just slightly nostalgic about it. It feels like how contemporary musical theatre used to sound in the 2010s, which is no bad thing. And this particular plot, I think, plays so well to a contemporary audience. It delivers its surprises in a way that are genuinely compelling. There is enough plot to unfold without it seeming contrived. Like I said, it still feels real. You care for both of these individuals. You root for this connection between them. But we get very invested, hugely invested, very early on in this show. And that's another of its brilliant qualities.
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Mickey Jo
This has really been a great year for these small shows that just tell a small story but do it so perfectly. It's a little boutique musical. I thought this was so charming, so witty, so, again, romantic, joyous. Just a lovely little relatable character study. It felt like traveling to the streets of New York, even though you weren't. And I hope that this show does. I desperately hope this finds a life somewhere off Broadway. I also hope that we get to see it again in the uk. And I've heard rumblings that both of those things may be happening. How could they not be? It's such a beautiful show. It always makes me hungry for cake. The score is brilliant, but the book and the lyrics are just genius. It's so delightful. I loved this. And if we come to find out that because of annoying technicalities, it's not eligible for this year's Olivier Awards, I'm gonna be really loud and angry about it. Just to pre warn you all, then we have the final two slots in. At number two, we have my favorite Broadway play of the year, Stereophonic.
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Guest Speaker
And what's so brilliant about Stereophonic is that there are many other plays that explore these same kind of dynamics between individuals, but they do so through a more traditional sense.
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Mickey Jo
I mean, how many plays have we.
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Guest Speaker
Seen where people just get drunk after a dinner party and then scream at each other? And I love Augusto, Sage County. I love who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. But we have seen that on stage. And Stereophonic provides them with a creative outlet in which to release all of these emotions and go at each other. We see Holly lashing out at the sound team and we see Diana just becoming increasingly insular and retreating in on herself and begging Peter for some kind of support that he is willfully reluctant to provide. Peter, Simon and Reg, however, have these spectacular meltdowns. And it's not really about the tempo that they're playing that piece at, or who is able to execute that particular riff on the bass guitar better. It's about everything else that is lingering beneath the surface. And that's what's brilliant about Stereophonic. One of the many things that's brilliant about it.
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Mickey Jo
In fact, another one that is closing in early January. I believe this closes on the 12th. Hopefully we're gonna see it in London at some point. I have heard consistent rumors that this is happening, that Sonja Friedman is going to be bringing this to a theater somewhere in the West End. And she better be, because I've only seen it the once and I desperately need to go and see it again. All the music is sensational, but just this perfect fly on the wall theatrical experience. This insight into this initially naturalistic and subsequently unraveling tumultuous life between these artists, between this group of musicians and their relationships and their dynamics and their insecurities. Again, so much of the human experience is contained within this thing. It's talking very specifically about the process of them as a band trying to record this album for a prolonged amount of time. But through that, it's a vessel to talk about so much more, to talk about power dynamics in their relationships, to talk about how they assert themselves, to talk about how they project and act on their insecurities and their anxieties. It's remarkable. It's so, so good. And again, circling back to. It's really funny and the songs are great. Finally, we have arrived at my favourite piece of theatre from 2024. And if you've seen my other recent coverage, you will know. Missing from this list. Before I tell you what it is, I do want to give out some honorable mentions to other shows that I loved this year. I loved seeing Babies at the Other Palace. I'd seen it before in concert. That's why it hasn't made the list again, because this was only for, like, shows that were new to me. Same for Sunset Boulevard on Broadway. I thought that was pretty much just the same version of the show that I'd seen in the Savoy with some small changes. Same with cabaret at the KitKat Club. I also want to shout out Come From Away in Gander what an incredible and. And special theatrical experience that was. I also want to talk about. Oh, gosh, There are so many I want to talk about appropriate and, you know, a handful more shows that I loved that I've talked about here on my channel. You can go and scroll back and look at various other glowing five star reviews of pieces of theatre I thought were brilliant. But it's time to talk about my very favourite. And that was a musical on Broadway. Yes, a Broadway musical has once again topped the list. This time it is the new musical, maybe happy ending. Beneath this whole thing runs an undercurrent where it feels like we're talking a little bit here about neurodiversity as well. You have these characters who pass entirely as human beings because they are hyper realistic and they end up going on a road trip together to try and fulfill some personal goals. And so they are, for all intents and purposes and for all perception, regular human beings set apart only by the way that they engage with society in the way that they act. So it kind of speaks to the neurodivergent perspective. There's a beauty and a pain to it. It is wonderfully bittersweet. It is so small and self contained and it's, you know, it has such a narrow focus on this little chapter in the lives of these two robot characters and yet it speaks to such huge emotions. It speaks about mortality and it speaks about love and the inherent juxtaposition of those two things. It talks about the sorrow and the joy of love and of life and the human experience and what that means to robots, who can look at it in a very analytical way, but who can't separate themselves from feeling the emotions of it. This futuristic science fiction nature of the plot being again a lens through which we can see something timeless and contemporary.
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Guest Speaker
And real and honest.
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Mickey Jo
I knew this was my new favourite show on Broadway. The second I walked out of that theatre, I think I said it to the vlog, I said to my friends, I was like, that is my new favourite Broadway musical. It's gorgeous, it is charming, it is so, so funny, but it's so smart as well. It does so many different things. It is telling this wonderful sort of Pixar, studio Ghibli esque story about these two retired robots who go on road trip to try and find things for themselves and then, you know, discover more about each other along the way. But it also acts as an allegory about the idea of navigating the world with a sort of a different perspective on it, with this feeling of being othered and having to mask it speaks to a really a broad range of the human experience. And then it has so much to say in the second half of the thing about grief and about love and about what it means to live with the pain of a love that no longer exists and to live with grief. And what these robots who are coming to terms with these emotions for the first time and approaching it in a very fresh way, what they learn about that, what they learn about the true meaning of all of that, it's so, so good. I am so excited for the cast recording to come out and I need everyone to keep buying tickets on Broadway because this is another show facing an uphill battle. Gosh, the mountain they have climbed already in terms of the weekly grosses. It had a slower Broadway, but it has just been gaining more and more momentum. It started to do really well because of the word of mouth and Darren Criss is in this. But by and large it's not based on a popular film. It doesn't have a recognisable title. It doesn't have huge stratospheric stars in the cast. People don't know this music because it's new. Please, if you're going to New York, go and see maybe happy ending. This is my biggest recommendation right now and unlike many of the other shows on this list list, it is continuing into next year. It is currently still an ongoing run at the Belasco Theatre. I am begging of you, go and see this show so I can go and see it again when next I get to New York, whenever that may be. In the meantime, those have been my favorite shows of 2024. I'm very excited to find out which shows from 2025 make the list in 12 months time. In the meantime, make sure you're following me. Make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss any of those reviews. Let me know what you thought of the shows I've mentioned today as well as your own favorite shows of the year. Thank you for listening. I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey 2025 for 10 more seconds. I'm Mickey Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day. Subscribe.