Photograph: Jeff Spicer/Getty Images/SOLT In his speech, Elliot Levey paid tribute to his late Ukrainian grandfather, who fled Kyiv many years ago after his brothers were killed in a pogrom, and Levey criticised the “incompetence and hostility” of the UK’s current scheme for hosting Ukrainians. The Ukrainian mezzo soprano Kseniia Nikolaieva, whose family are still in her home land, performed the country’s national anthem. The actor Lesley Manville also introduced a special performance in solidarity with the people of Ukraine during what she called a time of “unbearable suffering” after the Russian invasion. Many speeches were marked by the sense of joy in a community coming together again after the prolonged instability and disruption caused by Covid. Referring to the slap that Will Smith gave presenter Chris Rock at the Oscars, after a joke about Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith, Manford said: “I will very much be keeping your wives’ names out of my chuffing mouth … this is an evening for back-slapping not face-slapping!” Later he joked about Andrew Lloyd Webber’s declaration that he would risk arrest to open his theatre during the shutdown, calling the composer “the Che Guevara of the West End”. Manford presided over a joyous ceremony with plenty of gags. Hiran Abeysekera was named best actor for his portrayal of the shipwrecked teenager Pi, and the best supporting actor prize was shared by seven actors who play the tiger in the show: one gives the creature a voice, and three pairs of performers each represent its head, heart and hind. Life of Pi won five awards including best new play, best lighting design (Tim Lutkin and Andrzej Goulding) and best set design (Tim Hatley for the design and Nick Barnes and Finn Caldwell for the puppets).
Hiran Abeysekera as Pi with Tom Larkin (Tiger Head) in Life of Pi. Lolita Chakrabarti’s puppet-powered adaptation of Yann Martel’s much-loved novel opened at the city’s Crucible theatre in 2019 and its West End transfer was, like many productions, severely delayed by the pandemic.
The Oliviers honour London productions, but this year’s second biggest winner, Life of Pi, is a success story that began in Sheffield. The winners of the Olivier awards, overseen by the Society of London Theatre, are chosen by a team of industry figures, stage luminaries and theatre-loving members of the public. When Buckley took the stage to collect her award she joked that it was “like my worst nightmare and my biggest dream all at once.”
Redmayne paid tribute to Buckley, saying he would “never have gone on this ride” without her. It brings him his second Olivier award: he won in 2010 for playing the assistant to painter Mark Rothko in the play Red. Redmayne, who previously played the Emcee in an Edinburgh fringe production of John Kander and Fred Ebb’s musical in 2001, returned to the West End for the first time in 10 years to reprise the role. Rebecca Frecknall was named best director, and Cabaret also took the awards for best musical revival and best sound design (for Nick Lidster). Cabaret took all four awards for actors in a musical: Eddie Redmayne (as the Kit Kat’s grotesque ringleader, the Emcee) and Jessie Buckley (as singer Sally Bowles) in their leading roles, and Elliot Levey and Liza Sadovy as supporting characters whose romance is imperilled by the rise of nazism.
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