Olivier glitches and celebrations, plus other UK news….

Twitter provided a running commentary, of course, on people’s reactions to the event: as @countessjones commented, “@The BBC red button coverage is a shambles. Wanted to listen to Nancy Carroll’s speech instead we get Paul Gambaccini with Gok Wan.” And while it was apparent from The Stage tweets that the press there were issued with an advance list of winners — “Grr. While I was talking to Thea Sharrock I think somebody “borrowed” my list of winners…” complained our correspondent on the scene, only to find it again and say, “Ah. I’ve found my list. Will never call the probity of my fellow press peeps into question again…”, I had no such luck in Canberra, despite an assurance from Jane Quinn of Quinn and Bolton PR (who typically don’t handle theatre accounts, but were looking after the press coverage) that I would be supplied with an advance list: “I just don’t yet know what time but certainly you can have it as the show goes up,” she wrote to me on Friday, but then failed to honour it.

That was doubly frustrating for me as I was trying to offer international coverage of the awards to Playbill.com, and I was on an entirely different time zone as I did so — eleven hours ahead of London, fourteen hours ahead of New York — and no sooner did the awards finish than I had to head off to the airport for a flight back to Sydney, where I’m now spending the rest of this week.

But if the Oliviers have inevitably distracted me from my hols, I don’t want my own local difficulties with following and covering them to detract from the fact that they have this year at last achieved a higher, more accessible profile, with tickets for the event even available at last for the public itself. (*Sheridan Smith, winning for Best Performance by an actress in a musical, blissfully referenced her parents sitting in the gods).

But there have been problems beyond the failure of the press office; another person on Twitter, who is a carer for her disabled mother, told me that when she tried to secure tickets for the event on the day they went on sale she was informed that the disabled places were sold out, but she subsequently found out from the theatre itself that although the theatre has four wheelchair spaces, none of these were actually put on sale.

And one has to wonder exactly what Barry Manilow was doing there, both on the entertainment bill and then as presenter of the Best New Musical, except as a half-hearted effort to beef up the celebrity quota. But of the awards themselves, I have little beef. I am personally a bit disappointed by the failure of Tracie Bennett to secure the Olivier for Best Actress, but then Nancy Carroll - just 12 days from the due date on her pregnancy, I heard her say to Gambaccini - was an equally worthy winner in the category; likewise, the surprise win of Roger Allam, over more obvious candidates like the wonderful Derek Jacobi or Rory Kinnear, was a good validation for an outsider candidate who never does less than great work.

The commercial theatre may have had a comparatively poor showing, being solely recognised in awards to Legally Blonde and the site-specific Railway Children, with the much-nominated Love Never Dies going home empty handed. But elsewhere the National, Royal Court and Donmar — with 12 wins between them — as well as the unsubsidised but not commercial summer seasons at Shakespeare’s Globe and Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park bringing up the rear with a couple more major wins, proved our ongoing reliance on producing theatres that maintain artistic policies. Likewise, the Lyric Hammersmith and relative newcomer the tiny Cock Tavern, who brought in wins for outstanding achievement in an affiliate theatre and best new opera production respectively, also prove the continuing importance of theatres beyond the West End, whether long-established like the Lyric or more recent arrivals like the Cock.

And talking of theatres with artistic policies: no theatre over the last 15 years has probably had a more disproportionate impact on the fabric of London theatre, comparative to its size, than the Donmar Warehouse, first under Sam Mendes, then Michael Grandage. When Mendes left, of course, everyone thought what a tough act Grandage would have to follow; and the same challenge is now facing Josie Rourke, who it was announced last week would be his successor.

I always thought that Josie would be a natural candidate, having begun her career there as a trainee director under Mendes, and subsequently given her own productions there as well as at the RSC. She’s now done the miraculous job of securing the Bush a new home, and though I thought she might not choose to go to the Donmar so soon after the move happens, it turns out that she’ll see the Bush into their new premises before leaving.

So, in the musical chairs of London’s artistic directorships, her move is going to create a major opportunity for someone else. Now we need to start guessing who that might be: perhaps Jamie Lloyd, groomed at the Donmar by Grandage, could take it over. Alternatively, there’s Charlotte Westenra (another graduate of the Donmar’s trainee scheme) or Tamara Harvey, who last directed one half of Steve Waters’ double bill The Contingency Plan there in 2009, both of whom deserve a bigger break now.

Being away from the fray, as I’ve been, means that I’m digesting the news back home at one remove and several hours difference. I also missed last Thursday’s press day to revisit Romeo and Juliet and King Lear in the refurbished Royal Shakespeare Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon. This was the third press go-round for these productions, and of course the point of showing them to the critics again was to show the new auditorium off against productions they already knew so that its efficacy could be tested.

As the Observer’s Kate Kellaway remarked yesterday, “Never open a new theatre with a new production. This is said to be a thespian rule (the ultimate no-no would, presumably, be a new version of “the Scottish play”).” In fact, artistic director Michael Boyd is really challenging theatrical superstition, since his own first new production in the new theatre will indeed be the Scottish play, opening in April. Kate goes on to say, “But there are unsuperstitious reasons for opening the RSC’s theatre at Stratford with tried-and-tested productions… It means that it is architect Rab Bennetts’s £112m revamp of the RSC complex that is under the spotlight and, in particular, the new auditorium itself.”

And the verdict? For Michael Billington in The Guardian, two simple words sufficed: “It works”. And it succeeds, he goes on, “precisely because it feels new and strangely familiar.” Meanwhile, Charlie Spencer in the Daily Telegraph was exercised with the things that really matter: “Before entering the theatre, what I really needed was a double espresso - the idea of three and a half hours of King Lear, surely the most gruelling and emotionally draining of Shakespeare’s plays, was inconceivable without one. The good news is that the new bars and restaurants are efficient and spacious, and whereas one was often forced to endure frustrating queues in the old RST, the service is splendidly efficient - and the coffee terrific.”