OLIVIER AWARDS – Best Play Winners
June 15, 2010
OLIVIER AWARDS – Best Play Winners
Best New Play
2011 Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris
2010 The Mountaintop
2009 Black Watch by Gregory Burke
2008 A Disappearing Number
2007 Blackbird by David Harrower
2006 On The Shore Of The Wide World by Simon Stephens
2005 The History Boys by Alan Bennett
2004 The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh
The BBC Award for Best New Play
2003 Vincent In Brixton by Nicholas Wright
2002 Jitney by August Wilson
2001 Blue/Orange by Joe Penhall
2000 Goodnight Children Everywhere by Richard Nelson
1999 The Weir by Conor McPherson
1998 Closer by Patrick Marber
1997 Stanley by Pam Gems
1996 Skylight by David Hare
1995 Broken Glass by Arthur Miller
1994 Arcadia by Tom Stoppard
1993 Six Degrees Of Separation by John Guare
1992 Death And The Maiden by Ariel Dorfman
1991 Dancing At Lughnasa by Brian Friel
1989/90 Racing Demon by David Hare
1988 Our Country’s Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker
1987 Serious Money by Caryl Churchill
1986 Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Christopher Hampton
1985 Red Noses by Peter Barnes
1984 Benefactors by Michael Frayn
1983 Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet
1982 Another Country by Julian Mitchell
1981 Children Of A Lesser God by Mark Medoff
1980 The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens, adapted by David Edgar
1979 Betrayal by Harold Pinter
1978 Whose Life Is It Anyway? by Brian Clark
1977 The Fire That Consumes by Henry de Montherlant, English version by Vivian Cox with Bernard Miles
1976 Dear Daddy by Denis Cannan
Best Revival
2011 After the Dance directed by Thea Sharrock
2010 Cat On A Hot Tin Roof
2009 The Histories
2007 The Crucible by Arthur Miller
2006 Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen in a new version by Richard Eyre
2005 Hamlet by William Shakespeare
2004 Mourning Becomes Electra by Eugene O’Neill
2003 Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare and Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekov
1995 As You Like It by William Shakespeare
1994 Machinal by Sophie Treadwell
1993 An Inspector Calls by J.B. Priestley
1992 Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen
1991 Pericles by William Shakespeare
God of Carnage Review
May 18, 2008
I’m not quite sure what Yasmina Reza makes of Christopher Hampton’s sparkling adaptation of her latest play God of Carnage. She has gone on record as saying her bleak and futile view of humanity and profound insights into life and relationships are often lost in translation.
She has also said that she wants her audiences to suffer. Well, if the reaction on the night I attended the play is any indication – Hampton has let her down badly, leaving Ms Reza to sob all the way to the bank. The audience, myself included, laughed hysterically and enjoyed themselves enormously at what, in effect, is an uproarious comedy of bad manners involving two bourgeois French married couples who meet for the first time when their respective schoolboy sons become involved in a playground skirmish resulting in one of them having two front teeth knocked out.
What begins as a civilised confrontation between the two sets of parents slowly develops into a gloves off row ending in a Pyrrhic victory. In the process, both couples reveal their frailties and strengths, their dormant fears and anxieties and their emotional shortcomings and insecurities.
Hampton excavates more laughs from this all-too-recognisable situation than Ms Reza ever intended and by so doing has created a crowd-pleaser, which, like the same team’s ‘ART’, will run for years and survive several cast changes.
The present cast Janet Mcteer and Ken Stott, in whose home the play takes place, and Ralph Fiennes and Tamsin Greig as the couple whose son inflicted the damage – are absolutely superb. Mark Thompson’s blood-red living room set strikingly compliments the fiery passions aroused, and the incisive direction, alive to every nuance in the text, is by Matthew Warchus.
The West End has a towering hit on its hands. Sorry about that, Yasmina.
CLIVE HIRSCHHORN. Courtesy of This Is London.
GIELGUD THEATRE.
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