Limelight readers showed a distinct preference for classics of various kinds, ranging from Shakespeare to Alfred Hitchcock. But when a new play by a relatively unknown local playwright tops the most-read list … you know something’s afoot.

Naturism, Griffin Theatre Company. Photo © Brett Boardman

1. Naturism (Griffin Theatre Company)

Intergenerational friction and ecocide-era despair collided in Naturism, playwright Ang Collins’s mainstage debut – an 85-minute, bare-all comedy set on a remote bush block somewhere in Victoria. And yes, the cast was fully starkers. According to Limelight, “Naturism earns its most resonant truth: that nakedness, whether literal or moral, is never as simple as it seems.”

2. The True History of the Life and Death of King Lear & His Three Daughters (Belvoir)

Some theatre companies embrace the Silly Season. Belvoir went serious, ending its 2025 season with what is arguably the most chewy, gloomy and forbidding of the Bard’s tragedies. “Why pop corks when you can pop eyeballs?” asked Limelight‘s reviewer.

“Colin Friels gives us a peppery, far-from-decrepit Lear, a king stepping down at the height of his powers rather than sliding from them. He traces his...