OLIVIER AWARDS – Best Set and Design Winners

OLIVIER AWARDS – Best Set and Design Winners

Best Set Design

2011 The White Guard designed by Bunny Christie
2010 Jerusalem designed by Ultz
2009 August: Osage County designed by Todd Rosenthal
2008 Rae Smith and the Handspring Puppet Company for War Horse
2007 Sunday In The Park With George, designed by David Farley and Timothy Bird
2006 Hedda Gabler designed by Rob Howell
2005 His Dark Materials designed by Giles Cadle
2004 Hitchcock Blonde designed by William Dudley
2003 A Streetcar Named Desire designed by Bunny Christie

Best Set Designer

2002 Tim Hatley for Humble Boy and Private Lives
2001 William Dudley for All My Sons
2000 Rob Howell for Richard III, Troilus and Cressida and Vassa
1999 Anthony Ward for Oklahoma!
1998 Tim Goodchild for Three Hours After Marriage
1997 Tim Hatley for Stanley
1996 John Napier for Burning Blue
1995 Stephen Brimson Lewis for Design for Living and Les Parents Terribles
1994 Mark Thompson for Hysteria
1993 Ian MacNeil for An Inspector Calls
1992 Mark Thompson for The Comedy Of Errors
1991 Mark Thompson for The Wind In The Willows

Designer of the Year

1989/90Bob Crowley for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Hedda Gabler, Ghetto and The Plantagenets
1988 Richard Hudson for his season at The Old Vic
1987 Lucio Fanti (with Design Team) for The Hairy Ape
1986 William Dudley for Futurists, Kafka’s Dick and The Merry Wives Of Windsor
1985 William Dudley for The Mysteries and The Critics
1984 John Gunter for Wild Honey
1983 Ralph Koltai for Cyrano De Bergerac
1982 John Gunter for Guys And Dolls
1981 Carl Toms for The Provok’d Wife
1980 John Napier and Dermot Hayes for Nicholas Nickleby
1979 William Dudley for Undiscovered Country
1978 Ralph Koltai for Brand
1977 John Napier for King Lear
1976 Farrah for Henry IV (Parts 1 and 2) and Henry V

An Inspector Calls

Round-up of An Inspector Calls reviews at the Novello Theatre, London:

Telegraph: 5/5

Evening Standard: 3/5

Times: 4/5

OPENING THOUGHTS

Times: More than 15 years after its first appearance at the National Theatre in 1992, it’s still heart-thumpingly thrilling.

Telegraph: Daldry’s 1992 calling-card production hasn’t even begun to settle into some dusty, well-worn groove. In fact, not only is it ever-green fresh but it dawns on you that no other revival in this dying decade has come close to matching its breathtaking daring and faultless execution.

DIRECTION

Times: Stephen Daldry’s extraordinary reinvention of J. B. Priestley’s classic has lost none of its fierce pertinence

Telegraph: Daldry creates a running conversation between past and future, cause and effect, dream and reality. What could just be a soap-box for socialism becomes a multi-layered, mind-blowing box of tricks…. The fact that this Inspector has triumphed over time – and looks set to run and run – is rather apt since Daldry’s direction, which works hand in glove with Ian MacNeil’s exquisite expressionistic design, plays such ingenious games with temporal perspective.

ES: The real achievement of Daldry is to make something Wagnerian out of a play that is usually conceived in the idiom of Agatha Christie. It’s tempting to think of him as an alchemist, an instinctive master of how to fuse story and spectacle… Daldry’s feat is to reclaim Priestley as an experimental artist. He reimagines the play as a darkly psychological drama complete with brooding string music and sepulchral woodwind.

DESIGN

Times: Ian MacNeil’s design is as impressive as ever, and even if it no longer comes as a surprise to many, the cacophonous collapse of the Birling home as the family’s shameful secrets are exposed is a stunning coup de théâtre.

ES: The design, by Ian MacNeil, is the production’s star turn.

ACTING

Times: A faintly coarse note creeps into a couple of the performances, but the acting is mostly compelling.

Telegraph: Recently out of RADA, Robin Whiting impresses as the disturbed young Eric, as does Marianne Oldham as his equally stricken sister Sheila. Hats off first and last, though, to Nicholas Woodeson, superbly tense, tough and watchful as Goole.

ES: The action is neatly constructed… Nicholas Woodeson, in a suit he appears to have borrowed from a much larger man, is an appropriately beady-eyed Inspector. But he is mostly too self‑effacing – and then briefly stentorian, thundering out his moralistic criticism.Around him there are performances that are enjoyable yet far from subtle.

LAST WORD

Times: This is, though, outstanding theatre: a production of provocative, penetrating and exuberant brilliance.

Telegraph: Nicholas Woodeson [is] superbly tense, tough and watchful as Goole and powering the evening towards a conclusion that is as shattering as it is artistically satisfying.

ES: The production is entertaining but in the end a little too elaborately packaged.

Times: Sam Marlowe

Telegraph: Dominic Cavendish

Evening Standard:  Henry Hitchings

Book tickets to An Inspector Calls at the Novello Theatre, London and SAVE £13

Billy Elliot triumphs at Tonys

British musical Billy Elliot triumphed last night at the 63^rd Annual Tony Awards, held at Radio City Music Hall in New York.

The show won 10 awards, taking the number of international awards Billy Elliot has won to an impressive 73. Its wins included best musical, best director (Stephen Daldry), featured actor in a musical (Gregory Jbara), and leading actor in a musical – which went to all three of the young actors playing Billy (David Alvarez, Trent Kowalik, and Kiril Kulish). Billy Elliot also won a slew of creative awards including best orchestrations (Martin Koch), best scenic (Ian MacNeil),  lighting (Rick Fisher) and sound (Paul Arditti) design of a musical, best book (Lee Hall) and best choreography (Peter Darling).

Liza Minnelli presented Elton John, Stephen Daldry, Eric Fellner and Sally Greene with the Tony for Best Musical, joined on stage by the cast, production team and co-producers.

The original production of Billy Elliot is still playing at the Victoria Palace Theatre in London after celebrating its 4^th anniversary last month and the show has played to over 3.5 million people worldwide.

Despite sound problems running throughout the awards ceremony, the star-studded gala for 6,000 people saw an 11 minute show-stopping opening that included the three Billy’s performing “Electricity” from the show accompanied by Elton John, songs from West Side Story, Guys and Dolls, Next to Normal, Hair, Shrek, Dolly Parton singing 9 to 5 with the cast and Liza Minnelli singing “And the World Goes Round”.

Hosted by Neil Patrick Harris, other shows profiled included Mamma Mia!, Legally Blonde and Jersey Boys, with guest appearances from Lucie Arnaz, Jeff Daniels, Edie Falco, Will Ferrell, Carrie Fisher, Jane Fonda, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Lange, Susan Sarandon and John Stamos.

Other British winners included Angela Lansbury, winning her fifth Tony Award for her performance as Madam Arcati in Blithe Spirit; Matthew Warchus for best direction of a play for God of Carnage – and his production of The Norman Conquests also won best revival of a play; Tim Hatley for best costume design of a musical for Shrek; and Anthony Ward winning best costume design of a play for Mary Stuart.

The life of British actress Natasha Richardson was also celebrated at the awards following her death in March.

See the full list of 2009 Tony Award winners.

See Billy Elliot at the Victoria Palace Theatre and SAVE

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