Evening Standard Theatre Awards – Shortlist 2010
November 22, 2010
Awards announced: Sunday 28 November 2010, Savoy Hotel London
BEST ACTOR
Roger Allam Henry IV Parts One and Two (Shakespeare’s Globe)
Rory Kinnear Hamlet (National’s Olivier)/Measure For Measure (Almeida)
David Suchet All My Sons (Apollo)
THE NATASHA RICHARDSON AWARD FOR BEST ACTRESS
Nancy Carroll After The Dance (National Lyttelton)
Elena Roger Passion (Donmar Warehouse)
Sheridan Smith Legally Blonde (Savoy)
Sophie Thompson Clybourne Park (Royal Court)
BEST PLAY
Mike Bartlett Cock (Royal Court)
Bruce Norris Clybourne Park (Royal Court)
Roy Williams Sucker Punch (Royal Court)
THE NED SHERRIN AWARD FOR BEST MUSICAL
Legally Blonde Savoy Theatre
Les Misérables Cameron Mackintosh 2010 production at Barbican Theatre
Passion Donmar Warehouse
BEST DIRECTOR
Howard Davies The White Guard (National Lyttelton)/All My Sons (Apollo)
Nicholas Hytner The Habit Of Art (National Lyttelton)/London Assurance (National Olivier)/Hamlet (National Olivier)
Laurie Sansom Beyond The Horizon and Spring Storm (National Cottesloe)
Thea Sharrock After The Dance (National Lyttelton)
BEST DESIGN
Miriam Buether Sucker Punch (Royal Court)/Earthquakes In London (National Cottesloe)
Bunny Christie The White Guard (National Lyttelton)
Christopher Oram Passion (Donmar Warehouse)/Red (Donmar Warehouse)
CHARLES WINTOUR AWARD FOR MOST PROMISING PLAYWRIGHT
DC Moore The Empire (Royal Court)
Nick Payne If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet (Bush)/Wanderlust (Royal Court)
Anya Reiss Spur Of The Moment (Royal Court)
THE MILTON SHULMAN AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING NEWCOMER
Melanie Chisholm for her performance in Blood Brothers (Phoenix)
Daniel Kaluuya for his performance in Sucker Punch (Royal Court)
Isabella Laughland for her performance in Wanderlust (Royal Court)
Shannon Tarbet for her performance in Spur Of The Moment (Royal Court)
You Me Bum Bum Train created by Kate Bond and Morgan Lloyd (LEB Building, E2)
THE GOLDEN SEAGULL AWARD
Presented on behalf of Moscow Art Theatre.
THE LEBEDEV SPECIAL AWARD
For outstanding contribution to theatre.
Evening Standard nominees announced
October 25, 2010
This year’s London Evening Standard Theatre Awards long-list of nominees has been announced.
The nominees cover some of the most high-profile of this year’s West End shows with a starry list of performers, directors and playwrights alongside some serious new talent. The Royal Court scores particularly highly with a range of acting and creative nods – including four nominations for Clybourne Park.
See the full list of London Evening Standard Theatre Awards 2010 nominees here
Sheridan Smith (pictured) and her show, Legally Blonde, both nominated
The shortlist of nominees will be announced a week prior to the awards ceremony, which will be held this year on 28 November at the newly reopened Savoy Hotel. The judging panel for the awards includes theatre critics Henry Hitchings of the Standard, Charles Spencer of the Telegraph, Susannah Clapp of the Observer, Georgina Brown of the Mail on Sunday and Matt Wolf of the Herald Tribune. Chair will be Evgeny Lebedev, who is chairman of the Standard and also the son of the proprietor Alexander Lebedev.
In terms of musicals it’s a good list for Sir Cameron Mackintosh who sees his 25th anniversary production of Les Misérables tapped, plus his West End transfer of Broadway hit of Hair – which closed after a relatively short run at the Gielgud Theatre. Also listed is the Menier’s Sweet Charity at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, which is about to close on 6 November, alongside long-runner Legally Blonde at the Savoy and current critical success Passion at the Donmar Warehouse.
Simon Russell Beale, nominated for Deathtrap
In the Best Actor category up-and-coming stars such as Benedict Cumberbatch and Rory Kinnear are matched alongside established heavy-weights, from Roger Allam and Jonathan Pryce to David Suchet and Simon Russell Beale, the later for his turns in the National’s London Assurance and current West End hit Deathtrap. Alfred Molina also gets a nod for the Donmar’s Red after losing out at the Tony’s to co-star Eddie Redmayne.
Best Actress nominees feature a range of talent from high-profile crowd-pleasers that will guarantee plenty of red carpet coverage (Keira Knightley, Gemma Arterton, Sheridan Smith) to hard-hitters Judi Dench, Zoe Wannamaker and Fiona Shaw.
Best Plays feature both boxing shows to have played in London this year – Beautiful Burnout by Bryony Lavery at the York Hall and Sucker Punch by Roy Williams at the Royal Court. It’s a big awards for the Court who also get nods for Cock by Mike Bartlett, Clybourne Park by Mike Bartlett and Posh by Laura Wade.
Stars Sophie Thompson (pictured) and Martin Freeman, director Dominic Cooke and writer Bruce Norris all nominated for Clybourne Park
Director nods feature a who’s who of current hitmakers, ticking pretty much every director box including Howard Davies, Rupert Goold, Michael Grandage, Nicholas Hytner, and director of the moment Thea Sharrock. Also Dominic Cooke gets a well-deserved nod for Clybourne Park, which transfers from the Royal Court to the West End in January.
Lez Brotherston is a notable inclusion in the Designer category with four of his productions credited: The Rise and Fall of Little Voice at the Vaudeville, Measure for Measure at the Almeida, Women Beware Women at the National and Design for Living at the Old Vic.
Most Promising Playwright nominees pay tribute to the Royal Court’s progressive programme of nurturing new writing talent, with 3 playwrights nominated: DC Moore for The Empire, Anya Reiss for Spur of the Moment and Nick Payne for Wanderlust. Equally impressive is the Bush, which is once again proving to punch well above its weight, with James Graham for The Whisky Taster, Nick Payne (again) for If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet and Penelope Skinner for Eigengrau all nominated.
The Outstanding Newcomer category is dominated by onstage talent, with a surprise nod to the Spice Girls’ Melanie Chrisholm for her much-praised stint in Blood Brothers, alongside upstarts including Laura Dos Santos for Educating Rita, Henry Lloyd-Hughes for Rope and Posh, and Simon Godwin for his direction, and Isabella Laughland and James Musgrave for their performances, in the Royal Court’s Wanderlust.
See the full list of London Evening Standard Theatre Awards 2010 nominees here
Evening Standard Theatre Awards – Nominees 2010
October 25, 2010
Awards announced: 28 November 2010
BEST ACTOR
Roger Allam: Henry IV Parts One and Two (Shakespeare’s Globe)
Bertie Carvel: Rope (Almeida)
Benedict Cumberbatch: After the Dance (National’s Lyttelton)
Martin Freeman: Clybourne Park (Royal Court)
Alex Jennings: The Habit of Art (National’s Lyttelton)
Rory Kinnear: Measure for Measure (Almeida)/ Hamlet (National’s Olivier)
Adrian Lester: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Novello)
Alfred Molina: Red (Donmar Warehouse)
Jonathan Pryce: The Caretaker (Trafalgar Studios)
Simon Russell Beale: London Assurance (National’s Olivier)/ Deathtrap (Noël Coward)
Adrian Scarborough: After the Dance (National’s Lyttelton)
David Suchet: All My Sons (Apollo)
THE NATASHA RICHARDSON AWARD FOR BEST ACTRESS
Gemma Arterton: The Little Dog Laughed (Garrick)
Nancy Carroll: After the Dance (National’s Lyttelton)
Judi Dench: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Rose, Kingston)
Tamsin Greig: The Little Dog Laughed (Garrick)
Jenny Jules: Ruined (Almeida)
Keira Knightley: The Misanthrope (Comedy Theatre)
Amanda Lawrence: Jiggery Pokery (BAC)/ Henry VIII (Shakespeare’s Globe)
Rosaleen Linehan: The Beauty Queen of Leenane (Young Vic)
Helen McCrory: The Late Middle Classes (Donmar Warehouse)
Lesley Manville: Six Degrees of Separation (Old Vic)
Anna Maxwell Martin: Measure for Measure (Almeida)
Elena Roger: Passion (Donmar Warehouse)
Fiona Shaw: London Assurance (National’s Olivier)
Sheridan Smith: Legally Blonde (Savoy)
Sophie Thompson: Clybourne Park (Royal Court)
Zoë Wanamaker: All My Sons (Apollo)
BEST PLAY
Cock by Mike Bartlett (Royal Court)
The Big Fellah by Richard Bean (Lyric Hammersmith)
The Habit of Art by Alan Bennett (National’s Lyttelton)
Beautiful Burnout by Bryony Lavery (York Hall)
Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris (Royal Court)
Ruined by Lynn Nottage (Almeida)
Posh by Laura Wade (Royal Court)
Sucker Punch by Roy Williams (Royal Court)
THE NED SHERRIN AWARD FOR BEST MUSICAL
Hair – Gielgud Theatre
The Human Comedy - A Young Vic/The Opera Group production co-produced with Watford Palace Theatre
Legally Blonde - Savoy Theatre
Les Misérables (2010) - Cameron Mackintosh production at Barbican Theatre
Passion - Donmar Warehouse
Sweet Charity - Menier Chocolate Factory; transferred to Theatre Royal Haymarket
BEST DIRECTOR
Dominic Cooke: Clybourne Park (Royal Court)
Howard Davies: The White Guard (National’s Lyttelton)/ All My Sons (Apollo)
Rupert Goold: Romeo and Juliet (RSC Stratford)/Earthquakes in London (National’s Cottesloe)
Michael Grandage: Red (Donmar Warehouse)/ Danton’s Death (National’s Olivier)
Jeremy Herrin: Spur of the Moment (Royal Court)
Joe Hill-Gibbins: The Beauty Queen of Leenane (Young Vic)
Nicholas Hytner: The Habit of Art (National’s Lyttelton/London Assurance (National’s Olivier)/Hamlet (National’s Olivier)
James MacDonald: Cock (Royal Court)
Roger Michell: Rope (Almeida)
Laurie Sansom: Beyond the Horizon and Spring Storm (National’s Cottesloe)
Thea Sharrock: After the Dance (National’s Lyttelton)
Lyndsey Turner: Posh (Royal Court)
BEST DESIGN
Lez Brotherston: The Rise and Fall of Little Voice (Vaudeville)/Measure for Measure (Almeida)/Women Beware Women (National’s Olivier)/Design for Living (Old Vic)
Miriam Buether: Sucker Punch (Royal Court)/Earthquakes in London (National’s Cottesloe)
Bunny Christie: The White Guard (National’s Lyttelton)
Rob Howell: Private Lives (Vaudeville)/Deathtrap (Noël Coward)
Vicki Mortimer: The Cat in the Hat (National’s Cottesloe; transferred to Young Vic)
Christopher Oram: Passion (Donmar Warehouse)/Red (Donmar Warehouse)
Mark Thompson: London Assurance (National’s Olivier)
THE CHARLES WINTOUR AWARD FOR MOST PROMISING PLAYWRIGHT
James Graham: The Whisky Taster (Bush)/The Man (Finborough)
DC Moore: The Empire (Royal Court)
Nick Payne: If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet (Bush)/Wanderlust (Royal Court)
Anya Reiss: Spur of the Moment (Royal Court)
Atiha Sen Gupta: What Fatima Did (Hampstead)
Penelope Skinner: Eigengrau (Bush)
THE MILTON SHULMAN AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING NEWCOMER
You Me Bum Bum Train created by Kate Bond and Morgan Lloyd (LEB Building, E2)
Melanie Chisholm for her performance in Blood Brothers (Phoenix)
Laura Dos Santos for her performance in Educating Rita (Menier Chocolate Factory, transferred to Trafalgar Studios)
Simon Godwin for his direction of Wanderlust (Royal Court)
Daniel Kaluuya for his performance in Sucker Punch (Royal Court)
Isabella Laughland for her performance in Wanderlust (Royal Court)
Henry Lloyd-Hughes for his performances in Rope (Almeida) and Posh (Royal Court)
James Mcardle for his performance in Spur of the Moment (Royal Court)
James Musgrave for his performance in Wanderlust (Royal Court)
Nikesh Patel for his performance in Disconnect (Royal Court)
Shannon Tarbet for her performance in Spur of the Moment (Royal Court)
THE GOLDEN SEAGULL AWARD
Presented on behalf of Moscow Art Theatre.
THE LEBEDEV SPECIAL AWARD
For outstanding contribution to theatre.
Sweet Charity to close
September 23, 2010
The Menier Chocolate Factory’s hit production of Sweet Charity is to close at the Theatre Royal Haymarket.
Tamzin Outhwaite in Sweet Charity
The Tony award-winning musical, which transferred to the West End in April this year from the South London fringe venue, will end its run on 6 November 2010.
The show, directed by Matthew White, features a strong cast including Tamzin Outhwaite, Mark Umbers, Josefina Gabrielle, Tiffany Graves and Paul J Medford.
The Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields musical, with a book by Neil Simon, follows the adventures Charity Hope Valentine and includes well known songs including Hey, Big Spender; If My Friends Could See Me Now and The Rhythm of Life.
Special Offer: Save £23.50 on tickets to Sweet Charity at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London
Sweet Charity
August 1, 2010
The smash-hit Menier Chocolate Factory production of Sweet Charity transfers to the West End starring Tamzin Outhwaite. A joyous score includes famous numbers Hey Big Spender and The Rhythm Of Life.
Videos: West End Live 2010
June 21, 2010
The weekend of 19 and 20 June 2010 saw the sixth annual West End Live event in Leicester Square, London. Showcasing the best of West End theatre, casts of most major shows performed for a crowd of over 250,000 people.
The Lion King interview at West End Live 2010
Thriller Live interview at West End Live 2010
Wicked interview at West End Live 2010
Jersey Boys Ryan Molloy interview West End Live 2010
Tap Dogs Adam Garcia interview West End Live 2010
Chicago interview West End Live 2010
Mamma Mia interview West End Live 2010
Love Never Dies interview West End Live 2010
Five goes Glee with Don’t Stop
June 21, 2010
Channel Five has recruited some West End theatre big hitters for their new show Don’t Stop Believing, coming soon to Five.
Tamsin Outhwaite, a judge on Don't Stop Believing
Tamsin Outhwaite, currently starring in Sweet Charity at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, will be a judge on the show. She will be joined by Duncan James, former member of boyband Blue and recent star of Legally Blonde at the Savoy Theatre in London. Other judges are pop star Anastacia and High School Musical choreographer Chucky Klapow.
Billed as X Factor meets Glee, the major, new live entertainment show will be fronted by Spice Girl Emma Bunton and aims to discover Britain’s greatest musical performance group.
The producers have been scouring the UK for existing and first time musical groups created by friends, colleagues, school mates or families, tapping in to the current interest in Glee.
The show is Emma Bunton’s first major presenting job following her judging duties on ITV’s Dancing on Ice.
Emma, 34, said: “Like millions of others I’m currently obsessed with musical performance groups so I am beyond excited. It’ll be an unmissable, all-singing, all-dancing spectacle.”
Alongside the main competition, the public will also be invited to join a specially created Don’t Stop Believing super group which will represent the UK on the thriving international Glee Club circuit in the USA. These auditions will be held whilst the series on air, with new members swelling the ranks every week.
The show is produced by Shine TV and GroupM Entertainment.
LINKS:
Free tickets to see the show live
Sweet Charity tickets – Save £23.50
June 3, 2010
Save £23.50 on tickets to see Sweet Charity at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London
Once again the Menier Chocolate Factory proves itself to be a musical hits factory by transferring its sell out production of Sweet Charity to the West End, starring Tamzin Outhwaite. Given that two of their other small shows, La Cage Aux Folles and A Little Night Music, have just been nominated for a slew of Tony Awards on Broadway, there’s no telling where Sweet Charity’s success will end up.
The show has been particularly good for Tamzin, who has enjoyed some great reviews from the critics for her performance as Charity Hope Valentine, in the feel-good show that includes hits such as Hey Big Spender and The Rhythm of Life.
The Times 
DailyMail
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Evening Standard
Book now and save £23.50 on tickets to see SWEET CHARITY at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London
Sweet Charity – Review
May 15, 2010
There was a time, not too many years ago, when the prospect of a home-grown British company reviving a great Broadway musical with enough style, talent and panache to bear comparison with – if not surpass – the original, was unthinkable.
Tamzin Outhwaite in Sweet Charity
Musicals were just not our thing, and choreographers such as Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse and Agnes de Mille despaired of finding dancers capable of performing their routines in anything other than modified and compromised versions.
Happily all that’s in the past. In the last few years we have, to quote that oft-used but rarely meant cliché, regularly beaten Broadway at its own game. A spate of Sondheim revivals, plus shows such as Hello Dolly!, Carousel and, most recently La Cage aux Folles, definitively prove that anything they can do we can do just as well.
The latest addition to the list is the Menier Chocolate Factory’s revival of Neil Simon, Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields’s Sweet Charity.
Obviously, for any production of this perennial 1966 musical to work, whoever plays Charity has, quite simply, to sing as well as she dances and act as well as she sings. Oh, and she’s also got to break your heart.
Gwen Verdon who created the role of the dance hostess with a depressing track record for falling for the wrong men, had all those qualities – and then some!
Forty four years later, Tamzin Outhwaite comes pretty close. She’s not the mega-talent Verdon was, but then who is? And if, in the final accounting, she lacks that extra ounce of vulnerability Charity should ideally possess, she invests so much energy and heart in what must be one of the most demanding female musical comedy roles every written, she pulls it off.
Apart from Charity herself, the show’s other must-have component is its choreography.
Most revivals, understandably, rely on recreating Bob Fosse’s brilliantly original concept – every nuance and gesture of which is built into Coleman’s wonderful score – and vice versa.
Stephen Mears, by far this country’s best musical choreographer, has other ideas. He’s reworked Fosse’s indelible staging of such numbers as Hey, Big Spender, The Rich Man’s Frug, Something Better Than This and the Rhythm of Life (the show’s one expendable number) without violating the spirit of the original so that there’s both a freshness to the routines, as well as a whiff of familiarity. And he’s put together a humdinger of a company, every one of whom is a positive asset.
Indeed, with a cast this good, Mears and director Matthew White have rightly decided to maximise their resources by allowing them to double and treble up, which they do most effectively, none more so than Mark Umbers.
Umbers plays opportunist Charlie, movie idol Vittorio Vidal and the nerdish Oscar Lindquist, the trio of men to whom Charity opens her heart.
In every production I’ve seen these roles are played by three different actors. Umbers takes on the challenge of doing them all himself and especially shines as Vittorio and Oscar. For me he’s the star of a show already bursting with talent.
Neil Simon’s gag-infested book (based on Federico Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria) stands up well, gets the job done and benefits from a tweaked, less whimsical ending than the Broadway original. Cy Coleman’s jaunty score and Dorothy Fields’s terrific lyrics remain in a class of their own.
A helluva revival of a Broadway classic.
CLIVE HIRSCHHORN. Courtesy of This Is London.
Book tickets to Sweet Charity at the Haymarket Theatre Royal in London
TAMZIN OUTHWAITE in Sweet Charity
May 13, 2010
Sweet success for Tamzin as she gives her all in major musical revival
Tamzin Outhwaite
If it wasn’t so extraordinary it could get boring: the tiny little Menier Chocolate Factory in South London proves itself once again as a musical hits factory by transferring its sell out production of Sweet Charity to the West End, starring Tamzin Outhwaite. Given that two of their other small shows, La Cage Aux Folles and A Little Night Music, have just been nominated for a slew of Tony Awards on Broadway, there’s no telling where Sweet Charity’s success will end up.
The show has been particularly good for Tamzin, who has enjoyed some great reviews from the critics for her performance as Charity Hope Valentine, in the feel-good show that includes hits such as Hey Big Spender and The Rhythm of Life.
Tamzi is best known for her TV roles – particularly a high-profile stint in EastEnters, but has always placed a big emphasis on theatre, including the recent successful revival of Boeing Boeing, and an impressive list of other theatre credits such as West End productions of Grease, Oliver!, Carousel and Radio Times.
Book tickets to Sweet Charity at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London
