The Olivier Awards - Winners, Performances, Scandals and Cameron Mackintosh
Mackintosh enlivened an otherwise dull show with his perfectly pitched 40 year resentment of the awards.
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The Olivier Awards (with Mastercard),is run by The Society of London Theatres (SOLT) and present prizes to the best of London theatre, opera and dance. And this year with the highest West End audience numbers in history - higher even than Broadway and with ticket prices for star led productions reaching even more stratospheric levels there is much for SOLT to celebrate. It is not clear if this show will either reflected or support growth in those numbers.
This year’s version was presented by the wonderful Beverly Knight and Billy Porter who unfortunately, had to rely on a script written by the social media intern who had just run it through AI. They opened with a ‘gospel’ version of Luck Be A Lady performed with the House Gospel Choir. There seemed to be no good reason for this; neither of them is well known for performing in Guys and Dolls and the show itself is not running any more in London.
SOLT obviously spaffed their budget on A-List presenters this year: theatre royalty (Elaine Paige and Jonathan Bailey), mixed with Hollywood nobility (Idris Elba, Cate Blanchett and others), and the closest thing to actual royalty MISS NAOMI BLOODY CAMPBELL - amazing! And Gok Wan.
THE WINNERS
In terms of awards, the biggest news was that there was no big news. Last year Sunset Boulevard, correctly picked up a lorry load of awards and provided the best live performance ever seen in any awards show ever (see below).
This year there was an even spread with new British / New Zealand musical The Curious Case of Benjamin Button getting three awards (Best Musical, Outstanding Musical Contribution, Best Actor - John Dalgleish), Fiddler on the Roof got a couple including Best Musical Revival in which it was up against Oliver and Hello Dolly which both seemed likely winners and Starlight Express which didn’t.
Giant, a new play by Mark Rosenblatt got three awards including Best Play, Leading actor (Jon Lithgow) and best supporting actor for Elliot Levey who gave the funniest acceptance speech.
There was no love for Mean Girls or The Devil Wears Prada with only one nomination each and no wins while MJ The Musical won only one award for Christopher Wheeldon’s choreography - matching the Tony he won for the Broadway production. It is a shame to see Mean Girls is soon closing because Best Musical nomination and the chance to perform at the show could have helped it extend.
Les Miserables got a special award for staying in business for 40 years and becoming the longest running (and possibly longest!), show in the history of the world according to Sir Lord Cameron Mackintosh of Theatreland. Cam also took the opportunity to reinforce the fact that he owns SOLT’s asses when he opened his pre-filmed speech by saying “Thank you for this award for me and my girl.” Only theatre nerds would have picked up on this amazing shade because in 1985 Les Miserables lost out on the Best New Musical award at the Oliviers to frothy, Cockney rehash Me and My Girl.
A few years later another Cam-produced show by the same writers, Miss Saigon, seemed like a certain winner. It is an incredible show, it had a fantastic cast and a helicopter. It lost out to the rock and roll comedy show Return to the Forbidden Planet. It’s not just Love that never dies is it deary?!!
However, releasing the amateur performance rights to Les Miserables to eleven theatre groups in the UK is such an immense gift to all those people who give up time, effort and money to express their passion for theatre. Bravo Lord Cam and here’s to Forty More Glorious Years at the Barricades®
THE PERFORMANCES
Giving out awards can be a bit boring as an audience spectacle. SOLT does a great job of moving the show along and interspersing it with musical numbers. There actually used to be scenes from plays as well but these seem to have been lost along the way - probably don’t work as well on socials.
Let’s be honest, millions of people will have watched this show on ITV in the UK or live on You Tube outside the UK as I did. Of those millions watching on various sized screens around the world, the majority were not waiting for the Outstanding Achievement in Opera award but for the musical numbers. And we started well.
Usually at The Oliviers, each show presents either its eleven o’clock number - less cast needed and the performer is up for an award - or a big joyful company number - get as many bodies on the stage as possible to show the public what they get when they buy a ticket. In 2018 42nd Street opened the show, Rosalie Craig sung Being Alive and there was the opening number of Hamilton. In 2022 we had Welcome to the Moulin Rouge, AND Samantha Barks AND Kerry Ellis with the entire cast of Anything Goes. This year things were a little different.
The first performance was from Myles Frost and the cast of MJ The Musical. They were in dynamic form in the Beat It section with strong vocals, amazing dance and fizzling energy. However, it does look a bit like A Chorus Line.
This year with the show nominated for Best Revival, Oliver gave us one performer, Simon Lipkin (who is very good) as Fagan with Reviewing the Situation. It is a clever song, dramatically and lyrically but it’s not really a banger is it?
Fiddler on the Roof avoided If I Were A Rich Man which was good but instead gave us the Wedding Dance in which a group of Orthodox Jewish men dance with bottles balanced on their heads. How many potential audience members reached for their Mastercard to but £183 tickets for that? Where was Tradition or Sunrise, Sunset?
A duo from Starlight Express gave a performance of Starlight which sounded like it was in the wrong key and had not benefited from a sound check. All involved need to do better than this for their performers, including the musical arrangers and creatives who lost so much drama from the song by making it female / male instead of two contrasting male voices. This duet did not sell what it is an exciting, high energy show that is ideal to get younger audiences into theatres.
At least the skaters were on stage because there was not a peep from Helly Dolly except for when Imelda Staunton slipped into the stalls in time to pick up her regular Imelda Staunton Award for the best ‘Imelda Staunton Performance in an Imelda Staunton led Musical’ award. I worked with an actress who was once up against Imelda Staunton for the Imelda Staunton award, she said that as soon as Staunton’s name was announced she knew that she could take the night off.
The cast of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, whose writer Darren Clark is the first New Zealander to win a Best Musical award, danced round in a circle singing a happy folk song while the two principals looked lovingly at each other then walked off stage, only returning for the final few bars. There are better numbers in the show if you want to sell tickets although I understand the desire to show off the talented cast of actor musicians who are incredible. By the way, go and see this show
There was a slightly bizarre ‘Natasha Pierre’ megamix medley which made no sense to me. Although it is always a joy to see Maimuna Memon perform. It is a shame that the Donmar missed out again after bringing The Band’s Visit over a couple of years ago.
The cast of Why Am I So Single? also performed confirming that the show is not as good as Six which I (and the rest of the known Universe), loved. Side bar: have you ever met anyone who did not enjoy Six? Why Am I So Single needs work.
THE SCANDALS
The first scandal of the evening was the lack of any performance from double award winner Titanique. The show featured on the BBC’s Big Night of the Musicals a couple of weeks ago and went down a storm. But despite winning Best New Entertainment or Comedy Play and Best Supporting Actor for the glorious Layton Williams there was no room at the Royal Albert Hall for this Celine Dion fanboy/girl show.
And The Olivier Awards needed Titanique last night. It needed a lift, a laugh a splash of colour. Despite Billy Porter’s best efforts there was a lack of flair on show.
The second scandal was the much hyped, trailed and talked about “Les Miserables at Forty Finale.” Theatre watchers were all a flutter at what the Society of London Theatre might present. The What’s On Stage website posted an article confirming four female and one male performer and adding ‘Performers for the broadcast are to be revealed in due course – from the graphic used by the show teaser, there may be some big stars involved..’ But there weren’t.
Nope. What we got from the showcase of London theatre presented by the Society of London Theatre was four immensely talented women (Rachelle Ann Go, Lucie Jones, Nathania Ong and Shan Ako), who were given some cruise ship cabaret mash up version of On My Own and I Dreamed a Dream followed by Bradley Jaden doing some strong emoting with Stars. Then it ended. There was no parade of 4376 Javerts from around the world, no snippet of Matt Lucas doing Master of the House and not even a Michael Ball / Alfie Boe duet of Empty Chairs. There were enough people in the audience who had been in Les Mis for the whole show to be creditably presented on the night but, instead, the war of ‘Fuck You’, ‘No Fuck You’ between his Highness The Baron Mackintosh and SOLT dribbled out like tepid water from a slightly leaking tap.
The Oliviers is a wonderful event and it has extended its range to include shows like Brainiac and smaller theatres. The 2025 edition will be remembered as the year that we couldn’t quite place what happened.
Congratulations to all the well deserved nominees and winners who are listed HERE
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