The Salterton Arts Review 2022 Countdown

Join me as we look back at some of the cultural highlights from London and beyond in a Salterton Arts Review 2022 Countdown.

A Year In Review

From the perspective of the Salterton Arts Review, 2022 was a pretty good year! 2020 was the year of an unexpected disruption followed by a blog relaunch and carefully exploring arts and culture in a new way. 2021 was the year of getting dispirited by ongoing lockdowns, and then jumping back into culture in a big way when restrictions were removed. In 2022 I found it hard to slow down. We are now well beyond the point once more where it’s possible to keep up with everything going on in London. I could go to the theatre every night of the week and spend all weekend at museums and still not see everything. But I still have the urge to try, and sometimes exhaust myself in the process. An aim for 2023 might be to consider being more selective.

Part of trying to keep up with London’s cultural programming is, for me at least, seeing a lot of temporary exhibitions and theatre. I’ve managed to get to a few new institutions, for instance the Camden Art Centre and London Metropolitan Archives, but often in the context of an exhibition. It takes a bit more planning for me to get out on a heritage walk these days, or to destinations further afield that require a full day out (even within London). But I’ve enjoyed these activities when I do prioritise them (eg. this post or this one): perhaps another thought for 2023.

Putting The Beyond Into ‘London And Beyond’

2022 has also been the year of travel coming back. I squeezed in a few trips where I could in the last couple of years, but they always felt a bit uncertain and subject to last minute cancellations and rule changes. In 2022 I managed to do a long overdue bucket list trip to Peru, had short excursions to Paris, Prague and Ljubljana, and an end of year jaunt to Iceland. It’s a privilege I no longer take for granted, and I’ve enjoyed the new sights and experiences I’ve packed into these trips.

So looking back at the year as a whole, it has been a good one. I’ve seen innovative, passionate theatre, informative exhibitions, and explored new corners of the city and beyond. Read on to look back at a few highlights from the Salterton Arts Review in 2022.

5. Red Pitch – Bush Theatre

I’ve been lucky to see a lot of great theatre in 2022. But there are some productions that stick in the memory long after you’ve seen them. One of those, for me, was Red Pitch. I saw this back in February at the Bush Theatre. The work of Tyrell Williams, this compact play told the story of three young men seeking out the normalcy of football training at their local pitch while everything around them changes.

Red Pitch has gone on to win several awards: the 2022 George Devine Award, Best Writer for Tyrell Williams at the 2022 Stage Debut Awards, and the Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright at the 2022 Evening Standard Theatre Awards. These are well deserved: the play is sharp, well-observed and fast-paced. The production at the Bush, directed by Daniel Bailey, was full of heart and humour, and one of the most energetic things I’ve seen on stage this year.

As well as the quality of the writing, directing and acting, Red Pitch has stayed with me in 2022 because of what it captures about contemporary London. The fracturing of communities as they are priced out of gentrifying areas. Pinning hopes on what may be pipe dreams. Balancing external pressures with personal ambition. Finally it was great to see such positive representation of young, Black men, and I hope to see much more of actors Francis Lovehall, Emeka Sesay and Kedar Williams-Stirling.

4. Tony! [The Tony Blair Rock Opera] – Park Theatre

Tony! [The Tony Blair Rock Opera] is included in this year’s countdown because it was really very funny. Comedy musicals based on recent history can go either way: some are barnstormers and some can flop and disappear without a trace. I wasn’t sure when I booked this which way it was going to go. But in the end it was the only thing I’ve seen this year that had me laughing until I cried. I will never again think of Gordon Brown without imagining his trousers around his ankles while he sings about macroeconomics. That seems like quite an accomplishment.

What I enjoyed most about Tony! was the extent to which it balanced irreverent humour with packing in really quite a lot of information. I know a lot more about Tony Blair than I used to: both his life story and his politics. But I also loved moments like Madison Swan as Princess Diana, nailing the shy glances while delivering a few un-princess-like choice words. And Charlie Baker as an endlessly incredulous Tony Blair was a perfect bit of casting.

Without any spoilers as to what is coming later in the countdown, it also cemented for me that I generally like my musicals small and bitingly funny. I’ll take a West End or Broadway show at a pinch, but it’s the underdogs for me all the way.

3. Van Gogh. Self Portraits – The Courtauld Gallery

There have been a number of good exhibitions in London this year. Earlier in the pandemic I prophesied that galleries would play it safe and go for money earners as they built back. To a certain extent I think that’s true. Places like the Barbican have continued to go for less obvious choices, while some institutions now seem to be reaching for the crowd pleasers. But we must remember that exhibition programming normally runs a couple of years in advance so we may not see new trends for a while.

But anyway, that’s a bit of a sidetrack. What we are talking about now is the Courtauld Gallery, who fluked the best ever timing for a major refurbishment, skipped the pandemic and reopened in 2022. Their opening show, Van Gogh. Self Portraits was very special. It was the perfect choice for the small, two-room exhibition space, giving visitors time to look closely at each self portrait, drawn from major galleries around the world. I love a small and focused exhibition, and I love paintings that encourage you to get up close and look at their texture and colours, which makes this one of my top picks for 2022.

2. MUCEN & Museo Larco Visible Storage – Lima

I do try to stick to London for my annual Year in Review posts as London is primarily what the Salterton Arts Review is all about. Having said that, I can’t help slipping in something further afield from time to time. Last year the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian was in the mix, and this year it’s a limited selection of what I saw in Peru.

From a purely personal, bucket list point of view, walking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu was undoubtedly a 2022 highlight. But thinking about this museologically, there are some definite winners. I’ve narrowed it down to two. Firstly there was MUCEN. This was my pick for Lima at the time, and remains so a few months on. The museum of Peru’s Central Bank essentially displays a capsule collection of Peruvian history. It’s easy to get to grips with without being overwhelming, and it’s also fun wandering into an old bank vault to see the gold collection. A really enjoyable experience, and easy to get to from downtown Lima’s main sights.

The other highlight is even narrower in focus: not the Museo Larco as a whole, but its visible storage. I liked the Museo Larco, but found it quite busy and distracting. The visible storage, on the other hand, was overlooked by a lot of visitors so was peaceful, and absolutely fascinating. I loved seeing row after row of beautiful ceramics, grouped thematically to show the breadth of the skills of the artisans of the Inca, Nazca and other cultures. I went twice during my visit to the museum, and would happily go back again just to see the storage. Museum geekery at its finest.

1. Operation Mincemeat – Southwark Playhouse

And now, drumroll please… In first place in the 2022 Salterton Arts Review Countdown is… Operation Mincemeat, which I saw at the Southwark Playhouse! This goes to show what I mean about small, plucky musicals, because this was the best show I saw all year. And one of the few I have evangelised and told others to go and see.

Operation Mincemeat is the work of theatre company SpitLip. It is based on the real-life tale of a very unlikely WWII covert operation involving a corpse designed to trick Hitler. After seeing it, I was so confident that this was the best possible way to tell this story that I gave the Hollywood film a wide berth and intend never to see it. Why would I, when I have seen the highs and lows of the musical version, from a Nazi boy band to a heartbreaking solo which had me blinking back tears?

Operation Mincemeat is also a plucky little musical in the sense that it keeps on popping up. After starting at New Diorama Theatre and then having a few sold out runs at the Southwark Playhouse, it was at Riverside Studios over the summer and will soon be in the West End at the Fortune Theatre. Please for goodness’ sake get tickets if you haven’t seen it already and make this your own highlight for 2023!