2008 has been an unforgettable year for theatregoers in the West End. We take the time now to have a look at the dizzying highs and unfathomable depths of the dramatic twelve months that separate us from last Christmas. Let’s get retrospective… and there’s no Russell Brand or Jimmy Carr in sight I’m afraid.

To begin at the beginning… January saw the confirmation that the Holocaust laugh-barrel Imagine This was indeed to be humming its way into the West End later on in the year. A cracking good yarn set in the Warsaw ghetto of 1942, Imagine This didn’t exactly go down that well with London theatregoers. “Offensively banal” is how the Evening Standard described the production, who disapproved of the subject matter. Not usually associated with tragedies like the Holocaust, some people took a dislike to the musical theatre approach of Imagine This - fancy that!

Needless to remind you, Imagine This posted ‘early closing’ notices last month and the production drew its last breath last weekend.

Other not-so-festive turkeys included Gone With the Wind and Marguerite. Overlong, overblown and over here, Gone With the Wind kept a certain portion of spleen-venting critics in vinegar and lemon-drops for another six weeks. Though rather pitilessly hammy, the show was never anywhere near as bad as people liked to make out. Darius, for example, was excellent. Check out our review to see how we judged one of the most talked about musicals of the decade.

Marguerite, though not exactly a triumph, was no where near as panned as Trevor Nunn’s windypops. In fact, some papers really loved it. One chap from the Sunday Telegraph described the production as “raising the bar for modern musicals”.

Blimey.

Written by the team behind a little-known chamber-piece called Les Miserables, Marguerite certainly had all the ingredients for West End longevity but the recipe never really materialised. The loaf never rose, so to speak. It closed early, finishing its run at the Royal Haymarket two months sooner than intended.

But that’s enough failure for the minute, 2008 was also the year of big star productions. Someone called Josh Hartnett (Screams from the gallery) helped to bring Rain Man to the West End stage. A rather seismic hit with the ladies, Mr Hartnett was accompanied in the play by stage veteran Adam Godley as ‘Raymond’. In fact, Show and Stay® caught up with the multi award-winning thespian in an exclusive interview just as the show was debuting at the Apollo Theatre in the Summer.

Another big name to hit the West End this year was Scotland’s first timelord David Tennant. No 80s film classics for Dr Who though; no way. He went straight for the big one: Hamlet. Of course, this wasn’t such a surprise piece of casting as one might think: our man Tennant was a regular with the RSC long before he ever so much as touched a Tardis.

Also, by all accounts, he is in absolutely fantastic form as The Dane so everyone is advised to sniff him out.

The biggest news in musicals this year simply has to be the imminent Cameron Mackintosh revival of Oliver!. Following the media furore that surrounded the BBC Nancy hunt I’d Do Anything, it’s almost certain that Oliver! at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane is going to be a serious hit. With huge names like Rowan Atkinson signed up to join the cast, we here at Show and Stay are convinced that it is going to be THE show to blow off the cobwebs of the impending recession. Poised for greatness, book your tickets for Oliver! with us now to avoid disappointment. After all, when we do the Big Fat Blog of the Year next December you don’t want to be the only one that missed out on seeing the biggest thing to hit the West End in years!

From everyone here at Show and Stay, let me wish you a very merry Christmas and let’s hope that 2009 in the West End is just as exciting as 2008!