In a Guardian blog last week, Matt Trueman asked if the Olivier Awards really represent London theatre, and he pointed out such apparent anomalies as the omissions from the nominations list of Michael Sheen’s Hamlet, Lisa Dillon in Knot of the Heart, Rafe Spall and Sally Hawkins in Constellations, and the failure of most of London’s major new writing theatres to be even considered for their work in the best play category.
But that’s to miss the point: the Oliviers are, without denial or apology, presented by the Society of London Theatres, to recognise shows in its member theatres only. Sure, there’s some confusion caused by the notion of what it calls affiliate theatres (and has one, catch-all category to honour), but really, this is a pat on the back from a sector of London’s theatreland to itself, much as the Tonys fulfill the same function on Broadway.
At least in London there’s a lot more for the nominators to choose their shortlist from: the entire Broadway season for this year’s Tony Awards (reaching the homestretch of eligibility this week and next) comprises just 37 shows.
There is one key difference, however, in the way the awards are run: whereas on Broadway the nominations list is drawn up by a panel of specially appointed industry insiders (who are specially vetted each year for conflicts of interest) of around 30 people, which is then put to a larger constituency of voters (some 700 or so, many of whom vote not for excellence but for vested interests), here in London the entire SOLT membership vote on the nominations and the awards themselves are then voted on by a far smaller panel made up partly of theatre professionals and partly of members of the public who are chosen specially for the task by applying to be on it.
It creates the interesting tension and contrast that while the results on Broadway are therefore likely to be distorted by lobbying and popularity contests, the nominations process is comparatively unsullied, achieved by the workings of an independent panel; whereas in London, the nominations are achieved by a different kind of consensus but the awards themselves are decided independently.
It does, however, inevitably produce some results that are truly baffling. No one will ever forget the instance two years ago where The Mountaintop came from nowhere — well, a small pub in Battersea, to be precise, via a run at the Trafalgar Studios to make it eligible — to ‘steal’ the Best Play award from Enron and Jerusalem.
This year, the Best Play win was another surprise: John Hodge’s Collaborators winning out over One Man Two Guvnors, which also went home empty-handed in the other categories for which it had been nominated, including Best Actor nominee James Corden, Best Performance in a Supporting Role nominee Oliver Chris, Best Director nominee Nicholas Hytner and Best Set Designer Mark Thompson.
But if One Man Two Guvnors felt robbed, Matilda broke the record previously set by another RSC production of over thirty years ago, Nicholas Nickleby, to win seven Oliviers (against Nickleby’s six). One of those seven wins was a joint Best Actress in a Musical award to the four young girls — aged 10-12 and the youngest-ever winners of an Olivier — who originated and shared the title role between them.
That wasn’t the only single award shared by more than one person: Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller also shared the Best Actor Award for their performances in the National’s Frankenstein in which they alternated the title role and that of the creature.
There are, in fact, six awards presented for performance categories in all, with further awards to Best Actress, Best Performance in a Supporting Role, Best Actor in a Musical and Best Performance in a Supporting Role in a Musical, so across those six categories there are a total of ten winning names, which is a bit perverse, though not entirely unprecedented: a few years ago the entire chorus of Jerry Springer - the Opera was named for the supporting role category.
Another curious anomaly: the Donmar Warehouse’s production of Anna Christie was named Best Revival — yet its director Rob Ashford failed to even get nominated for Best Director. While the award for Best Play went to Collaborators, for which director Nick Hytner was not nominated either, at least there the choice is being made on the material; with a revival, the award is essentially about the production, which is basically down to the director, his cast (whose star Ruth Wilson also won the Best Actress award) and designer.
But finally, too, it’s also all about the numbers, and its striking that only 8 productions have actually won anything in the main categories (excluding opera, dance and the affiliate theatre award). And it is even more striking that, apart from Matilda, the returning Collaborators and the soon-to-return Derren Brown — Svengali (named Best Entertainment), the other wins are for productions either long shut or in the case of Nigel Harman’s Shrek win, for a role he has since relinquished.
I think Matt makes a reasonable point, in that without the explicitly West End centric title that the awards used to have, you can see how its restrictions might be confusing. Certainly it's probably the highest profile British awards ceremony for any artform to have such stringent limitations on what is eligible.
Also it is something you pay to be eligible for - the Donmar pays to be considered whereas the Young Vic doesn't; both are legitimate decisions in their own way, but I do think the absence of the Royal Court Upstairs, Lyric, Young Vic and Almeida for purely financial reasons diminishes the awards as a whole. The likes of the Sheen Hamlet and the Young Vic's Government Inspector are hardly less commercial propositions than London Road.
Mark's summary of the Olivier awards is very balanced. As I recall it from a decade ago, there are five stages to winning:
1. Your play has to be nominated by another SOLT member (this is fairly easy but occasionally producers are slow to get their paperwork together);
2. then the panel members are asked to see it -- they choose which night to go independently and rarely meet each other;
3. at the end of the year they get round the table to do a shortlist;
4. SOLT members can then add names to the shortlist -- this is the stage where favours are called in and commercial pressures come into play;
5. finally the panel meets and votes without discussion -- not even those who have voted know who's won.
Actors have a bit of a raw deal as there an awful lot of them chasing a few awards; there's normally not much competition for Best Entertainment. The panel members in my view are a good mix of professionals and experienced regular theatregoers and their choices are generally the right ones. I can't say if The Mountaintop really was the best play as I didn't see it, but at least the award showed the panel that year thought for themselves and were impervious to hype. This year they picked Collaborators which is a completely original play over the highly favoured One Man Two Guvnors and The Ladykillers which were both adaptations. Probably the best outcome.
After ages trying to find the "Ollies" withe the RED Button - an annoying and unwelcome nuisance most of the time -I managed to catch half of the ceremony.Live shows are bound to have technical hiccups- but surely the sound engineers should have this sorted by now in this digital age.It's a shame that the worst happened at the most poignant time.That being said I feel I MUST comment on some things the most superior engineer could not tangle with.
I'm sure an unknown "sang" a number solo which I annoyingly can't remember -then joined in with Ronan Keating dueting an ancient "No Matter What" from ""Whistle Down the Wind"- (hardly appropriate).Mr Keating informed us she was Kimberley Walsh who I now know was in Girls Aloud and starring in "Shrek". Could patrons in Row L at the Garden even hear her? Playing a lead role in a huge house like the Lane with THAT voice? Unbelievable!
The biggest laugh of the evening was when Sir Tim Rice said to Ms Paige who had just mauled "Don't Cry for me Argentina" was "the best he'd heard it sung" made me wonder how many sherries he'd quaffed beforehand. When I watched same she looked and sounded like a cross between Hylda Baker and Norma Desmond.Utterly terrible.(IMHO folks).
Another big difference between the Tonys and Oliviers (besides the coherent and intelligent presenters and recipients at the Oliviers) is that in the UK the Best Play and Best Musical awards go to the writers, not to the producers, as well they should.
Watching the Oliviers, when the wonderful Monica Mason was given her award for service to dance at the Royal Ballet - one could never imagine the beautiful, quirky duet, to atonal music, that was selected as an example of her tenure to ever have passed muster at the Tonys. In America one would insist upon something from Tales of Beatrix Potter or Alice in Wonderland - something PG friendly with tuneful music.
Despite quirky choices on occasion, and a fifth musical in the best new musical category so that BETTY BLUE EYES could get a slot , sont want to annoy Sir Cameron- the Oliviers outclass the Tonys by miles. Still.
As Mark points out - there is no requirement that the nominators for the Oliviers have seen any, let alone all, of the eligible productions - so that many worthy productions and performances etc are left out, as the SOLT-ers vote for projects produced by their friends or big studios, and shoehorn in nominations for folk they dont want to offend. Like SIr Cameron.
How else to explain a best new musical nomination for Shrek, as dire and desperate attempt as theatre as one can wish for. (and is that woman who sang the dreadful , endless, duet with Ronan Keating REALLY playing Fiona. OMG)
Presumably, in John Morrison's Stage (4), only productions previously nominated in his Stage (1) can be "shoehorned" onto the shortlist? So, the whole panel has already seen them at Stage (2) and discussed them at Stage (3) and they're highly unlikely to win in Stage (5).
I've always thought the strength of the SoLT Olivier awards is that the entire voting panel has seen every eligible production, which isn't the case with awards which are open to a wider field.
The least you can say about the Oliviers are that the awards make sense, while for example the WhatsonStage Awards are totally random
A minor but significant correction to John Morrison's outline of process. At stage 3 panel of 5 professionals and 4 members of public who have seen all 70-80 (or more ) proposed shows meet at year's end to long list. This long list is then sent out to SOLT membership who vote and it's this vote that produces shortlist of nominees. It's this short list that panel of 9 votes on (without consultation) to produce winners. It's certainly true that the SOLT voting process produces strange biases and it's not unusual for panel (who are probably the only people involved who have seen everything) to find that they cannot vote on their favourites because they have not secured enough votes to be short listed by the SOLT voters, who have usually not seen all the shows and have any number of biases towards the work of colleagues and business partners. I have it on good authority that in at least one category this year the overall winner would have been completely different had the panel been able to vote on the long list rather than the SOLT selected short list. Any voting system is likely to suffer from such flaws and on the whole this one seems better than the Tonys.
Archie is correct about the difference between the long list and the shortlist, which I had blurred together. The dodgy part of the process is of course the reduction from long list to shortlist, when SOLT members who haven't seen the shows get involved. This results in a high nominations count for some shows such as Spamalot which then leave emptyhanded in the final voting round which is entirely a matter for the panellists who have actually seen everything. I don't recall any really good shows being squeezed out by this pressure, at least not in the straight theatre categories.
I think some of the awards categories should be rethought -- it's time to drop Best Entertainment altogether. But overall the process is pretty well designed.
And perhaps there should be separate male/female featured performance categories.