Sunset Boulevard sweeps the board at the Oliviers with record haul
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A revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard swept the board at the Oliviers on Sunday night, winning a joint-record number of awards for a musical.
The West End show, featuring music by Lord Lloyd Webber, 76, was recognised with seven Olivier Awards, putting it on a par with previous winners Hamilton, Matilda and Cabaret.
Singer and former X Factor judge Nicole Scherzinger, who plays the leading role, was named best actress in a musical.
Her performance marked her first return to the West End since her debut in Lord Lloyd Webber’s Cats in 2015, for which she received an Olivier nomination.
Scherzinger plays Norma Desmond, the silent screen goddess who yearns for a comeback while holed up in an LA mansion, in a revival of a musical first staged in 1993 and inspired by the 1950 Billy Wilder film.
The musical won prizes including best musical revival, best actor in a musical, for Scherzinger’s co-star Tom Francis, and best director for Jamie Lloyd, who reimagined the show.
Lord Lloyd-Webber has been a force in the West End for decades, as the composer behind hits including The Phantom of the Opera, School of Rock, and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
Hollywood and TV stars who triumphed at the annual awards for excellence in theatre also include Succession star Sarah Snook, who took home best actress for her performance in The Picture of Dorian Gray. She said it was a “dream come true”.
Snook played 26 characters in the stage adaptation, during which she was followed by a camera crew with her performance beamed onto overhead screens.
She beat competition from actresses including Sarah Jessica Parker, who had received her first Olivier nomination for Plaza Suite, in which she starred opposite her husband Matthew Broderick.
Elsewhere, Mark Gatiss won best actor for The Motive and The Cue, directed by Sam Mendes at the National Theatre. Other nominees for the award had included stars Andrew Scott, James Norton and David Tennant.
Dear England, a production by British playwright James Graham about the England football manager Gareth Southgate, starring Joseph Fiennes, won the Londoner award for the best new play.
It also scored a win for Will Close as best actor in a supporting role, for his performance as Harry Kane.
Speaking to The Telegraph after collecting the Londoner award for best new play, he said: “It’s the one unifying thing that I think we can all acknowledge, that if you don’t get people on a lower…income into the theatre, then what the f–k are we doing it for?”
He suggested that the theatre industry is “squeamish” about class.
He said: “[Class] is hard to see and hard to define. So I think we are nervous about it… Go to the Baftas and they have rightly identified categories that they need to address in terms of representation, but class isn’t one of those because we’re just so squeamish about it.”
Receiving the award, Graham, 41, paid tribute to the drama teachers at his comprehensive school in Nottingham, who he said “just decided that working-class kids should do plays”.
Graham later revealed he had lost his working-class accent at university because he was “so nervous” about it, but said he regrets it now. He said that “hopefully” a play about football could help to open up the theatre to a more diverse audience.
He added: “I stand here as a white man, and they are not underrepresented in British theatre. But as someone who comes from the Red Wall and a working class family, I do feel the responsibility to keep sort of banging that drum because it’s hard to see.”
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Haydn Gwynne, the actress who died last year after a cancer diagnosis, received a posthumous award. She was best known for her roles in comedy series Drop the Dead Donkey and as Queen Consort Camilla in royal satire The Windsors.
The awards ceremony was first held in 1976, when it was known as the Society of West End Theatre Awards. It is run by the Society of London Theatre (Solt), a not-for-profit membership organisation for London theatre producers, managers, owners and operators.
This year’s ceremony was hosted by Hannah Waddingham, the Ted Lasso and musical theatre star, who opened the awards with a performance of Anything Goes from the musical of the same name.
Co-presenters included actor Dominic West, who recently complained that West End audiences included “a lot of tourists” and people in London who “are not necessarily there because they want to be there”.
The line-up of presenters also included the actress and model Cara Delevingne, former Vogue editor Edward Enninful, and comedian Sir Lenny Henry.
Eleanor Lloyd, president of Solt said: “The Olivier Awards have once again showcased the best of London theatre and the huge talent of this incredible sector. Congratulations to all of the worthy winners and every nominee for your immense and valued contribution.”
