THEATRE / The end of the year show: Sarah Hemming canvasses opinion from the world of theatre on the best plays and musicals of the year

PAUL ALLEN

Playwright and presenter of Radio 4's 'Kaleidoscope': 'I'd like to pick out The Choice by Claire Luckham at Salisbury Playhouse which focused on the dilemma faced by parents who believe their child may have Down's Syndrome. What was quite extraordinary was that Claire introduced into it video of her own brother, who has Down's Syndrome, to demonstrate what a fulfilled and happy life he leads. It broke down the rules of theatre: what is great about theatre is that however many rules you have about what makes a good play, the beauty is being able to break them. It did the trick of removing one of our protective skins. I'd like to mention a play at Scarborough's Stephen Joseph Theatre by Tim Firth called Neville's Island. Although it was a comedy in the Ayckbourn mould, it had a very distinctive voice, and it is a great pleasure coming acoss a new writer who already knows what he is doing. I'd also want to single out Tony Harrison's Square Rounds at the National Theatre. It had faults, particularly a lack of real narrative ideas. It was poetically brilliant, dramatically a bit of a problem. And my other choice would be Brian Friel's Faith Healer (Royal Court). I think Donal McCann is one of the best English-speaking actors around and that part allowed him to use all the dark and light he's capable of. The play offered a fascinating exploration of the spirituality of someone who believes he doesn't have any spirituality.'

FRANCES BARBER

Actress: 'Two things I really loved were both at Hampstead Theatre: Someone Who'll Watch Over Me by Frank McGuinness and Grace by Doug Lucie. The first one because it was a really moving play with fantastic performances; Grace because, as one of the critics said, it was Cassandra-like in its prophecies about what might happen here. I also thought Angels in America (by Tony Kushner at the National Theatre) was one of the outstanding new plays of the year. In terms of performances, I think all the actors in Lepage's Midsummer Night's Dream at the National deserve all the awards in the world for going through the mud every night, particularly now the weather is so cold. I couldn't even stand up in it.'

BOB CROWLEY

Designer: 'I'd choose An Inspector Calls at the National Theatre - for its sheer bloody cheek]'

JANE EDWARDES

Theatre editor, 'Time Out' magazine: 'I'd choose Angels in America for its subject matter (Aids) and its huge ambition, also Needles and Opium (National Theatre) - Robert Lepage seemed more sure-footed in this than in Midsummer Night's Dream, even if he was playing on a revolving trapeze, and it was memorable for its series of dazzling images. I also loved Communicado's Cyrano de Bergerac: the humour of the anachronistic Glaswegian translation (by Edwin Morgan) made the ending all the more moving. It was much better than its counterpart at the Haymarket Theatre.'

RICHARD EYRE

Artistic director of the National Theatre: 'For me the most exciting time in the theatre is always the first time a new play is seen by an audience. I was fascinated to see how the first night of Angels in America would be. Partly because it was a play with that subject matter. I never thought of it as a risk in terms of controversy, for me the only risk was that people would not think it as good as I did. It was wonderful when my faith was vindicated. I liked Billy Roche's Wexford Trilogy at the Bush very much - I think his plays have vigour, energy and darkness - he can really write. I enjoyed Frank McGuinness's Someone Who'll Watch Over Me at Hampstead and at the RSC I liked the Henrys. Pinter appearing in his own play (No Man's Land) at the Almeida was a historical monument.'

ESTELLE KOHLER

Actress: 'I'm crazy about musicals and I loved Grand Hotel at the Dominion Theatre. I thought it was a great shame that it fell foul of the recession: it got rave reviews and was highly recommended, but it had to close after such a short run. It was a very highly charged production by Tommy Tune, who is the great song and dance man of all time. It had an ensemble style and I really enjoyed seeing a style that we tend to associate with the fringe working on the big stage. I loved the girl playing Flaemmchen (Lynette Perry) - I would have given all my RSC credits to play that part.'

SAM MENDES

Artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse: 'Oddly enough all my favourite shows this year were on the big stage, usually it's the other way round. Maybe it's because I've been working on small stages. Three things stand out. Adrian Noble's production of The Winter's Tale (RSC), which was very beautiful. It's a hard play to do and I thought the Bohemia scene was movingly done and beautifully designed by Anthony Ward. I thought Stephen Daldry's An Inspector Calls at the Lyttelton was thrillingly expressionistic and had a point to its style. And I adored Nick Hytner's Carousel (also at the Lyttelton). It worked spectacularly well - I think he has shown a way forward for the American musical which isn't flowery. All these shows were remarkable for their completeness - it's the difference between a production being only visualised or being imagined which makes good theatre. I thought Philip Ridley's The Fastest Clock in the Universe (Hampstead Theatre) was outstanding and Angels in America was great as a play and a production. Ariane Mnouchkine's Les Atrides, shown in Bradford, was spectacularly good. In terms of performances I loved Simon Russell Beale's Richard III (RSC, directed by Mendes) - but I suppose I'm biased.'

MICHAEL PENNINGTON

Actor and director: 'The annual 'Who's Best' is a bore - like deciding which was the nicest day of the year; unfriendly, too, so I haven't considered the work of friends. But there were some great imports: Zeffirelli's brilliant updating of Six Characters at the National Theatre (though there were too many legwarmers and tantrums in the backstage scenes), which contained an acting masterclass by Enrico Maria Salerno and Benedetta Buccellato. And I also loved, for pure stagecraft, Andrei Serban's Trojan Women at the Edinburgh Festival.'

NED SHERRIN

Director, writer and broadcaster: 'Assassins (Donmar Warehouse) is streets ahead of everything else in the musical world. It's the best written musical, best directed and best acted. If there's one musical to see, that's definitely the one. Carousel, too, was a classy piece, it's nice to see a good staging of that sort of classic. I'm not really supposed to mention Our Song (Apollo Theatre, West End), since I directed it, but it does contain an incredible performance by Peter O'Toole which I never tire of seeing. Angels in America was a massive piece, brilliantly acted by its three main men: three and a half hours in which you never felt bored; and I loved John Guare's Six Degrees of Separation (Royal Court, then West End) a very nice, witty piece with two wonderful performances, by Stockard Channing - who we haven't seen over here before - and Adrian Lester.'

ROBERT STEPHENS

Actor: 'Angels in America. I'd been away and knew nothing about it, then I went to see it and was bowled over. I found it inventive and brightly comic, though it was dealing with unpleasant things. I can't wait to see the sequel.'

PAUL TAYLOR

Theatre critic of the 'Independent': 'Form and content were fascinatingly fused in Sondheim's Assassins, the year's best musical. It presented you with an apparent mismatch between genre (musical) and personnel (killers and would-be killers of US presidents) and compellingly proved this pairing to be a marriage of true minds. Brian Friel's Faith Healer at the Royal Court was the sort of occasion you spend the rest of your life recovering from. Monologues of piercing genius unimprovably performed by Ron Cook, Donal McCann and Sinead Cusack. Two other works that approached this unforgettability were Judith Thompson's The Crackwalker at the Gate (a horrifying comedy about Ontario's urban underclass) and Julia Bardsley's shattering promenade production at Leicester Haymarket of Kroetz's Dead Soil, a Hansel and Gretel story re-imagined as a refugee version of the Stations of the Cross.'

JENNY TOPPER

Artistic director of Hampstead Theatre: 'Angels in America is a firm favourite. Needles and Opium too, on reflection - I wasn't so sure when I saw it but as the years have gone on I have been enchanted with my memories of it. Sharman Macdonald's Shades was a funny, robust piece. It was a great joy to rediscover Billy Roche's The Wexford Trilogy (Bush) and I take my hat off to Dominic Dromgoole for keeping faith with playwright, director and company. At the Edinburgh Festival I think The Life of Stuff at the Traverse showed Simon Donald to be a playwright to watch, and I loved Tom Mannion in the central role of Communicado's Cyrano de Bergerac. Abduction by Lumiere and Son at the ICA was the best piece Hilary Westlake has done for a long time and it was good to see the ICA full again, as it has been for the last season. The last 10 minutes of Giorgio Strehler's production of Le Baruffe Chiozzotte at the National Theatre was theatrical perfection. I am very excited about a play I have just seen at the Traverse in Edinburgh - Unidentified Human Remains by the Canadian writer Brad Fraser. He manages to combine the kind of hard-edged and steely perception of what rootless modern life is about with tremendous humour. In terms of performances I thought Jane Horrocks and Alison Steadman were a great double act in The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, and Frances Barber as Eliza Doolittle in the National's Pygmalion gave the great comic performance. I saw two wonderful performances from Adrian Dunbar and Tim McInnerney in a reading of Snoo Wilson's Darwin's Flood at the Finborough Arms - it's a play that I hope will see the light of day and they tackled it with great comic relish. I adored Paul Eddington in No Man's Land (Almeida).'

PAUL WYETT

Actor: 'I really liked An Inspector Calls at the Lyttelton. I'm very hard to please - I don't go to the theatre much and I wasn't expecting to enjoy it. I like the play very much, the way it captures the deterioration of a family, but I think it was the acting of Kenneth Cranham and Richard Pasco that got me.'

(Photographs omitted)