Little Amal stirred hearts, Chaucer hit Willesden, Cush Jumbo was a perfect prince, and once again James Graham said it all * Read the Observer critics’ review of 2021 in full here It was a year of promises and postponements, of dodgy mask-wearing in the stalls – and of sudden soarings. It was no surprise that Rebecca Frecknall’s spectacular production of _Cabaret_, with Jessie Buckley and Eddie Redmayne, should prove one of the big excitements of the year – and one of the most expensive. But who in the Pre-Puppet Era (before _The Sultan’s Elephant_ and _War Horse_) would have thought that a three-and-a-half-metre-tall creature made of wicker and fabric would prove such a powerful reminder of how the theatre can stir hearts and stretch eyes? Little Amal, the child-refugee puppet who walked from the Syrian-Turkish border to Manchester, was pelted with stones in Greece, danced in Trafalgar Square, became an ambassador for political change – and for the imagination. She was a reminder of how theatrical truth does not depend on naturalism: as were the small white daemon puppets that lit up the stage like Chinese lanterns in Bryony Lavery’s adaptation of Philip Pullman’s _La Belle Sauvage_, and the marvellous driftwood creations that scuttled and sashayed through Lolita Chakrabarti’s version of _Life of Pi_. Continue reading...
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