The Crush Bar's Christmas Gift Guide
Six presents the theatre-obsessed person in your life would actually like. Plus: three shows to see next week and the final episode of my podcast.
Hello, and welcome to The Crush Bar, a newsletter about theatre written by Fergus Morgan.
This is the free, Friday issue, which usually contains a Q&A with an exciting theatremaker or an essay on a theatre-related topic. This week, though, there is The Crush Bar’s Christmas Gift Guide: six presents the theatre person in your life would actually like. After that, there are your three show recommendations for next week: two in London and one in Scotland.
In case you missed it, here is this week’s issue of Shouts And Murmurs, which is a weekly round-up of the most interesting reviews, interviews and articles on theatre elsewhere…
You can get Shouts And Murmurs straight in your inbox every week by signing up as a paid supporter of The Crush Bar for £5/month or £50/year. If you don’t feel like paying but still want to get the newsletter, then just reply to this email saying so, and I will make that happen.
There are a couple more things you can do to support this newsletter: you can share it with anyone you think might enjoy it and encourage them to subscribe, and you can use it for promotional purposes. There is more info about that here. Right, on with the issue.
Twelve days before Christmas Day is fairly late to be publishing a gift guide, isn’t it?
I know my readership, though, and I doubt you have sorted out your presents yet. I also think you will not have been inspired by the various theatre-themed Christmas gift guides that have been published elsewhere. They are a bit “stagey” for me, and if I know anything about the subscribers to this newsletter, it is that you cannot abide “staginess”. You can’t stand the word. You have to put quotation marks around it.
Also, I have been on the proverbial festive beach since I filed my last interview – this one with the great Simon Russell Beale published yesterday, of which I am very proud – and neglected to organise someone to chat to for this issue. So, Christmas gift guide it is. Below are six gift ideas perfect for the non-“stagey” theatre person in your life…
A classy theatre poster
I love a cultural poster. I frequently pay absurdly inflated prices for them at gigs, exhibitions and shows. Earlier this year, I even pulled my car over at the side of the road in Edinburgh to attempt to peel an advertisement for The National’s gig at Edinburgh Castle off the inside of a defunct phone box. I was, sadly, unsuccessful.
If you are after a decent theatre poster, then you have two options: prowl around the theatre hosting your chosen show, scouting for one to covertly prise off the wall; or simply visit one of several online shops that sell them. The National Theatre’s one is excellent: I like this one for The Lehman Trilogy and this one for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, but you would have to be very odd indeed to get this one of Annie Bake’s John. The Edinburgh Fringe’s shop is good, too: the 1981 poster is extremely classy.
A subscription to National Theatre at Home
I feel like NT At Home does not get enough recognition. At first, I thought it was basically just old NTLive broadcasts uploaded online – that version of Frankenstein with Benedict Cumberbatch, and some David Hare plays no-one liked - but I have since discovered that there is loads of good stuff on there: Yerma with Billie Piper, Beth Steel’s Till The Stars Come Down, The Deep Blue Sea with Helen McCrory, Simon Stone’s Phaedra, Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt, Ivo Van Hove’s A View From The Bridge.
Combined, those shows would have cost you several hundred pounds to see live. Now, you can watch them from the comfort of your own sofa for just £9.99 per month. Other services are available - Digital Theatre, Globe Player, BroadwayHD, Original Theatre, Marquee TV - but I don’t think any of them really compare to NT At Home.
A ticket to something good
To be honest, this one makes the most sense. If someone in your life likes going to the theatre, maybe just get them a theatre ticket? You could get them some gift vouchers - like the Theatre Tokens run by the Society of London Theatre and redeemable at venues nationwide - but it is more personal and thoughtful to choose a show, I think.
If you are in London, then there are obviously loads of exciting shows coming in 2025 to choose from: Jonathan Bailey in Richard II at the Bridge Theatre, James Graham’s Punch in the West End, Roy Williams’ adaptation of The Lonely Londoners at Kiln Theatre, Rob Icke’s Manhunt at the Royal Court, the West End transfer of The Years. If you are in Scotland, there is Jemima Levick’s staging of A View From The Bridge at the Tron Theatre, the musical adaptation of Wild Rose at the Edinburgh Lyceum, or Martin Green’s new play Keli with the National Theatre of Scotland. All sound great.
A book about theatre
Most theatre books these days feature actors or directors reflecting on their career in Shakespeare. This year, we’ve had She Speaks! What Shakespeare’s Women Might Have Said by Harriet Walter, A Piece Of Work by Simon Russell Beale, and My Shakespeare: A Journey Through The First Folio by Greg Doran. Even when they are not by famous names, theatre books tend to focus on the bard: Sophie Duncan’s Searching For Juliet: The Lives And Deaths Of Shakespeare’s First Tragic Heroine and Allie Esiri’s 365-part compendium Shakespeare For Every Day Of The Year were both published recently.
Other subjects do exist, though, and not just in impenetrably academic volumes. A good place to find them is the shortlist of The Society For Theatre Research’s Theatre Book Prize. This year’s winner was Out For Blood by Chris Adams, an investigation into the RSC’s ill-fated attempt to stage a musical adaptation of Stephen King’s Carrie on Broadway in 1988, which pipped Richard Pilbrow’s A Sense Of Theatre: The Untold Story Of Britain’s National Theatre and Bill Alexander’s Exploring Shakespeare to the top prize. It joins a list of winners that includes Nicholas Hytner’s Balancing Acts, Ian Kelly’s Mr Foote’s Other Leg, and Michael Billington’s seminal State Of The Nation.
A playtext subscription
Who wants to read about plays, though, when you can simply read a play?! And what better way to get in-the-know with all the latest drama than by subscribing to a service that sends new playtexts straight to your door? Both the Royal Court Theatre and the National Theatre run one - it is only £60 for ten plays with the Royal Court, and £155 for twelve with the National Theatre - but I would go with Nick Hern Books.
For £110, Nick Hern Books will send a new play to your loved one once a month for an entire year, with a cheaper option available for eBooks. It is, Nick Hern Books tell me, “the perfect way to keep up to date with the most exciting contemporary drama by today’s top writers.” Last year, if the promo pic they sent me is anything to go on, the plays included Jez Butterworth’s The Hills Of California, Mark Rosenblatt’s Giant, and Stewart Pringle’s The Bounds, which you read about right here in The Crush Bar.
A subscription to The Crush Bar, or Exeunt, or Cafe Europa, or all three, or another theatre Substack.
Here’s a secret: all gift guides are simply a shameless attempt to flog a subscription to the paper/magazine/newsletter in which they are published, and this is no different!
No, in all seriousness, signing someone up as a paid supporter of The Crush Bar - or any other of the growing number of excellent newsletters dedicated to theatre - kills two birds with one stone. Firstly, it is an extremely noble contribution in the fight to help insightful, passionate, independent theatre journalism survive and thrive in this cruel world, and it also means that your chosen recipient will get lots of invigorating, inspiring theatrical content in their inbox throughout 2025! Win, win!
Other newsletters have other benefits, but gifting someone a paid subscription to The Crush Bar means they will get every Friday issue of this newsletter, plus every issue of Shouts and Murmurs, my Tuesday round-up of the week’s theatre news, reviews, interviews, features and more. It costs just £5/month or £50/year and you can do it right now via the button below. Handily, you can even schedule the notification to arrive on Christmas Day, so it stays a surprise. I can picture their delighted faces now!
Oh, here is a paywall-free issue of Shouts and Murmurs, so you know what they will be getting - although ignore the deal this issue offers, which is no longer running.
Three shows to see next week
Trouble In Spiritland - Traverse Theatre, until December 18
The Traverse Theatre is not doing a big Christmas show this year, presumably for budgetary reasons. Instead, it is hosting Rona Johnston’s hit Edinburgh Fringe show Mary: A Gig Theatre Show, and, before that arrives, producing a brief work-in-progress run of Paul Tinto’s new spoken-word piece Trouble In Spiritland, directed by new associate Bryony Shanahan. You can get tickets via the button below.
Cat On A Hot Tin Roof - Almeida Theatre, until February 1
The Almeida Theatre has hit upon a winning formula: pick a Tennessee Williams play, cast someone from Normal People, and give it to Rebecca Frecknall to direct. It worked with Paul Mescal in A Streetcar Named Desire, and it will probably work again with Frecknall’s new staging of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Bob Marley: One Love’s Kingsley Ben-Adir. You can get tickets via the button below.
Ballet Shoes - National Theatre, until February 22
Australian playwright Kendall Feaver, designer Frankie Bradshaw and director Katy Rudd’s adaptation of Noel Streatfeild’s much-loved 1936 children’s novel has earned a slew of five-star reviews. Feaver’s version sticks broadly to Streatfeild’s story but makes a few judicious updates, and Rudd stages it all on Bradshaw’s beautiful set with the same magic she brought to The Ocean At The End Of The Lane back in 2019. It is one of the shows of the year, and you can get tickets via the button below.
The final episode of my podcast, A History Of Scottish Drama In Six Plays, was released on Monday. It is a recording of a live discussion on the recent past, perilous present, and uncertain future of Scottish drama that I hosted at the Traverse Theatre at the end of October. The panellists are critic Mark Fisher, Traverse Theatre artistic director Gareth Nicholls, and playwrights Nicola McCartney and Isla Cowan. You can listen to it - and to the entire series - wherever you usually find your podcasts.
That’s all for this issue
That is it for this week. If you want to get in touch about anything raised in this issue - or anything at all, really - just reply to this newsletter or email me at fergusmorgan@hotmail.co.uk. Or you can find me on BlueSky, where I am @FergusMorgan.
A quick reminder of the ways you can support The Crush Bar. You can share it. You can use it for promotional purposes. And you can become a paid supporter, which means you get an extra weekly email, Shouts and Murmurs, every Tuesday. There are currently 3572 subscribers, 111 of whom are paid supporters. If you would like to join them, you can do so above.
Fergus
Gift guide = stupendous! The best gift guide ever!