Last night the winners were announced for the 61st Evening Standard Theatre Awards, in a star studded gala at the Old Vic Theatre, co-hosted by the owner of the Evening Standard Evgeny Lebedev with Judi Dench and Ian McKellen, and presented by Rob Brydon.
In recent years the awards have proved somewhat controversial with several members of the judging panel walking out when a best actress award was given to Helen Mirren despite their voting for a less high-profile candidate. It seemed things were rigged to create the most glamorous event possible, generating red-carpet photographs to promote the newspaper rather than rewarding excellence.
Indeed in the second paragraph of this year's press release revealing the winners they’re stressing how many celebrities were at the Old Vic, last night.
In case that sort of thing excites you, you could have huddled in the cold outside and maybe got a selfie with Gillian Anderson, Gemma Arterton, Shirley Bassey, Kate Beckinsale, Anne-Marie Duff, Ralph Fiennes, Maria Friedman, Richard E Grant, Salma Hayek, Lenny Henry, Jeremy Irons, Nicole Kidman, Adrian Lester, Lindsay Lohan, Pixie Lott, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, James McAvoy, Rufus Norris, Joely Richardson, Simon Russell Beale, Alex Sharp, Zoe Wanamaker, Dominic West, Ruth Wilson or Anna Wintour.
At least these awards have a judging panel who’ve seen everything under consideration even if they are only there to advice. This is so much better than all the crappy new awards that are based on readers voting on-line when it simply becomes a competition to see who can organise the most mates to vote for them, driving traffic to the website and its advertising.
So let’s take a look at who got what last night?
Nicole Kidman received the Natasha Richardson Award for Best Actress for her performance as Rosalind Franklin in Photograph 51 at the Noel Coward Theatre.
They might as well just rename this the “award for the most famous actress on stage this year”. Kidman was fine but nothing more than that. Her role as the main protagonist in a science based thriller didn’t really involve much more than looking quizzical and troubled and the whole production lacked that killer scene that leaves you in no doubt you’re watching a star performance.
Similarly the Newcomer in a Musical Award went to Gemma Arterton, for her musical theatre debut in Made in Dagenham at the Adelphi Theatre.
What an insult to all London’s great young musical theatre performers that this should be given for such an insipid performance just because Arterton is a celebrity.
The Award for Best Actor was presented by Gillian Anderson to James McAvoy for his performance in The Ruling Class.
No one can argue with that, despite his being the most famous name on the list. He gave a daring, fully committed performance in a very demanding role that required him to play an eccentric, charismatic and unsettling aristocrat who gets weirder and weirder. McAvoy undeniably cracked it.
The award for Best Musical Performance went to Imelda Staunton for Gypsy.
Well that one was a certainty. Her performance is one of the best you’ll ever see in a play or musical. In fact if she hadn’t won the audience would have rightly stormed the stage in protests.
In the new talent categories, Molly Davies received the Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright for God Bless the Child; the Emerging Talent Award in partnership with Burberry was won by David Moorst, for his role in Violence and Son – both at the Royal Court Upstairs; which came away from the night with the most awards for a single venue.
These categories are traditionally where the judging panel show a little cultural diversity in their selection. Very few people see performances upstairs in the Royal Court so no one knows or cares about what went on there. I didn’t see any of these productions despite being at the theatre most nights of the week. Let’s trust that everything was awarded on merit.
In the Best Director category, Robert Icke received his first Evening Standard Theatre Award for Oresteia from Ruth Wilson and Dominic West. The production that opened the Almeida Greek Season recently completed its transfer run at the Trafalgar Studios.
This is richly deserved and it’s great to see a younger director win out with such a sophisticated vision. Icke really does have an extraordinary talent for re-interpreting classics in a visual, startling and fresh way.
In addition tonight, the Editor’s Award, in partnership with The Ivy, was presented to veteran of the stage Vanessa Redgrave.
Her last London stage appearance was an inaudible disaster in a badly misconceived production of Much Ado About Nothing at the Old Vic but no one can deny the extraordinary achievements she’s enjoyed during a long career in which she’s balanced giving land mark performances in great roles with political activism.
It will have also given the Standard a great photo opp when Redgrave collected her statuette from daughter Joely Richardson.
The Lebedev Award (named after the Evening Standard’s benevolent and cultured proprietor) was presented by co-hosts Judi Dench and Ian McKellen to multi award-winning music legend Stephen Sondheim who celebrated his 85thbirthday this year.
Sondheim? Again? We’ve only just finished honouring him for his 80th birthday. The man's undeniably a genius and a giant of theatre but to paraphrase the American comic George Burns, you reach an age where you get a standing ovation just for still standing. I think we've fawned enough over the great man.
This weekend was one of the pivotal awards weekends in the theatre calendar, with the stars of the West End hitting the red carpet to celebrate the best of theatre, dance and opera that London had to offer. The 39th Lawrence Olivier Awards took place on Sunday 12th April at the Royal Opera House and as ever there were some expected wins for the year’s most popular productions but also some surprises as well deserved dark horses crept up unawares.