PHIL HATFIELD looks at a vibrant West End year.

In the year of the “credit crunch”, smaller was often better.

For much of the best work in 2008 happened in the West End’s more intimate spaces.

For example, the best new play, Lee Hall’s The Pitmen Painters, about the Ashington Group of working class artists, came from the National Theatre’s studio space, the Cottesloe. It was hugely engaging, full of warmth and humanity and acted by a superb ensemble cast.

There were also two other fine new plays in the Cottesloe: Simon Stephens’s compelling “road movie” Harper Regan, in which a luminous Lesley Sharp added to her growing reputation and David Hare's engrossing and underrated New Labour satire Gethsemane.

Meanwhile, the 250-seat Donmar Warehouse hosted the year’s best revival, The Chalk Garden.

Michael Grandage dusted off Enid Bagnold’s almost forgotten 1956 play and, with his pitch-perfect production, revealed it as an English classic, with knockout performances by Margaret Tyzack and Penelope Wilton.

In fact, Grandage’s theatre had an exceptional year.

Jamie Lloyd’s low-tech revival of Pam Gems’s Piaf sold out before opening night and then deservedly transferred to the Vaudeville, with a stunning Elena Roger making the title role entirely her own.

And the Donmar’s year-long residency at Wyndham’s bore immediate fruit with Grandage’s marvellous production of Chekhov’s vigorous early play Ivanov, with Kenneth Branagh on top form as its depressed and dissatisfied anti-hero, and then his treasurable, light-hearted Twelfth Night, with Derek Jacobi one of the funniest of all Malvolios.

Two of the year’s most exciting new musicals, the big-hearted Into The Hoods and The Harder They Come, not only brought the rare sights and sounds of hip-hop, streetdance and reggae to the West End, but also attracted new, younger audiences.

Meanwhile, Jerry Herman’s La Cage Aux Folles sold out Southwark’s Menier Chocolate Factory before Terry Johnson’s delightfully funny and unexpectedly touching production transferred to the Playhouse, where it proved even better. Douglas Hodge’s storming turn as Albin/Zaza provided one of the year’s memorable moments as, at the end of I Am What I Am, he strode out of the theatre into the street in full drag with wig in hand.

Perhaps no show illustrated my “small is better” theme than Sunset Boulevard, which thrived in Craig Revel Horwood’s stripped down revival, which did full justice to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s underrated musical.

In a poor year for new musicals, big Broadway import Jersey Boys stood head and shoulders above the rest. In fact, it was the best written “jukebox” musical since Mamma Mia, while Ryan Molloy brilliantly captured Frankie Valli’s famous falsetto.

Adam Godley was a joy as the autistic brother Raymond Babbitt, outshining Hollywood’s Josh Hartnett, in Terry Johnson’s surprisingly successful screen-to-stage version of Rain Man.

God Of Carnage, Yasmina Reza’s brilliantly original comedy of bad manners, was the year’s funniest new play, although Fat Pig, Neil LaBute’s black comedy about friendship and obesity, and Joanna Murray-Smith’s intelligent farcical comedy The Female Of The Species ran it close.

The Old Vic enjoyed its best year yet under Kevin Spacey’s stewardship.

There was an exhilarating revival of David Mamet’s Tinseltown satire Speed-The-Plow, with Hollywood’s Jeff Goldblum joining Spacey in a virtuoso, high-octane double act as a pair of panic-stricken hustlers.

Then there was the belated London transfer of Peter Hall’s exquisite revival of Shaw’s Pygmalion, with lovely work from Michelle Dockery and Tony Haygarth.

And finally a revival of Alan Ayckbourn’s inspired comic trilogy The Norman Conquests, with the famous Old Vic auditorium stunningly reconfigured by Rob Howell for Matthew Warchus’s magnificently funny and touching in-the-round production.

The Pitmen Painters and The Norman Conquests weren’t the only examples of brilliant ensemble acting in 2008.

There was the rare opportunity to marvel at a big American cast in Tracy Letts’s August: Osage County at the National Theatre.

And there was John Tiffany’s dazzlingly directed and brilliantly drilled cast in the National Theatre Of Scotland’s production of Gregory Burke’s Edinburgh Festival smash-hit Black Watch. This spectacular theatrical event finally reached London with a sell-out visit to a specially transformed Barbican Theatre, where designer Laura Hopkins sprung several surprises.

In fact, one of the special delights of 2008 was seeing how familiar spaces like the Old Vic and Barbican Theatre were dazzlingly transformed for specific productions.

Another excellent example was how Kneehigh Theatre director Emma Rice and designer Neil Murray brought the Cinema on the Haymarket back into theatrical use for its multi-media homage to Noel Coward’s Brief Encounter, which enjoyed an acclaimed, oft-extended run.

MY PICKS OF 2008

  • New drama: The Pitmen Painters (NT Cottesloe), revival: The Chalk Garden (Donmar Warehouse); new comedy: God Of Carnage (Gielgud), revival: The Norman Conquests (Old Vic); new musical: Jersey Boys (Prince Edward), revival: La Cage Aux Folles (Playhouse).
  • Actor in a drama: Adam Godley (Rain Man); comedy performance: Derek Jacobi (Twelfth Night); musical performance: Douglas Hodge (La Cage Aux Folles); supporting performance: Tony Haygarth (Pygmalion); newcomer: Tom Hiddleston (Ivanov).
  • Actress in a drama: Elena Roger (Piaf); comedy performance: Margaret Tyzack (The Chalk Garden); musical performance: Kathryn Evans (Sunset Boulevard); supporting performance: Sophie Thompson (Female Of The Species); newcomer: Michelle Dockery (Pygmalion).
  • Director: Michael Grandage (Ivanov, The Chalk Garden, Twelfth Night); designer: Neil Murray (Brief Encounter); choreographer: Lynne Page (La Cage Aux Folles); most promising writer: Polly Stenham (That Face).
  • Best forgotten: Afterlife, Dickens Unplugged, Divas, Fram, Girl With The Pearl Earring, Gone With The Wind, Imagine This, Peter Pan El Musical, Riflemind, Some Trace Of Her.