I’VE not been impressed with the Globe theatre’s output in recent times, but the small cast of its touring ensemble made a big impact with their lively version of As You Like It in the summer.  

Emma Ernest, in a confident professional debut, seized the dream role of Rosalind with wonderful comic timing, allowing her character to be both exhilarated and confused by the twists and turns of her gender-swapping trickery, while the excellent Anna Crichlow, as cousin Celia, proved to be a splendid foil for Ernest as the two tussled gently over the worst excesses of Rosalind’s joyful deceit.

With the stage full of strong women and largely quiescent men, Brendan O’Hea’s production was a refreshing, bouncy interpretation of Shakespeare’s pastoral comedy that explored the many faces of love and the complicated tapestry of male-female relations.

My other theatrical highlight was at the Lyric Hammersmith in London, where Martin McDonagh’s Beauty Queen of Leenane, set in the west of Ireland, was revived by an outstanding all-Irish, four-person cast.

Orla Fitzgerald as 40-year-old Maureen, angry and depressed at having to look after her manipulative, ailing mother (Ingrid Craigie), was the feisty centrepiece of a brilliantly tense play, punctuated with humour and horror and at times so bleakly arresting that there were gasps from the audience.

Let’s hope there are revivals at other venues in the near future.

Music-wise, after a period of Covid-enforced absence, it was great to see the British jazz saxophonist Binker Golding at Ronnie Scott’s, where he was giving a run-out to new material from a forthcoming album.

His gumbo of classic hard-bop and contemporary soul was delicious — technically mind-blowing and fascinatingly complex, yet melodic enough to ensure it was far more than just an exhibition of supreme musicianship.  

Enthusiastically received by an attentive full house, each tune had the potential to appeal to all tastes and — that dread phrase in some jazz circles — to generate mainstream interest.

It was also good to see Sarathy Korwar back in front of an audience at King’s Place in London. Although it’s tempting to view Korwar as a band leader best suited to the recording studio, to experience him on stage is to appreciate a different side to his complex, eclectic art.

With the angry tones of vocalist Zia Ahmed in support, it was possible to get a fuller insight into Korwar’s thoughts on belonging and disaffection, on resisting the temptation to fit people into boxes, and on being able to assert that “home is where the heart is.”

Outside the walls of the studio it was also easier to appreciate what a brilliant drummer Korwar is. Relaxed, stunningly fluid and natural, he was in full control of his craft.

My final highlight of the year was the US artist Walter Price’s first major institutional exhibition in Britain, hosted by Camden Art Centre in north London.

The show included an intriguing group of paintings and drawings made during lockdown, during which Price used up whatever materials were on hand in the studio, without ordering in anything new.

This meant he sometimes had to work with the last knockings of his acrylic paints, mixing them with white and producing a body of art dominated by pastel colours.

Most striking was a series of 23 paintings featuring figures looking out into the brightness, evoking feelings of domestic isolation tinged with hope, while vague images managed to project the idea of armchairs, hazy front room scenes and the detritus of everyday indoor living — before the last four compositions suggested a final opening up with lockdown lifted.  

It was highly accomplished art, somewhere between figuration and abstraction, cleverly able to convey meaning without moving into specifics.