The thrills of a dramatic year

Lee Evans and Leigh Zimmerman helped The Producers scoop best musical award

10 April 2012

Haunting drama, grand musical kitsch and forceful political theatre gave our judging panel plenty to argue about this year at the 50th Evening Standard Theatre Awards. Here's how they cast their votes...

BEST PLAY

OUR argumentative judges could have debated Joe Penhall's Dumb Show, Conor McPherson's Shining City or David Edgar's Continental Divide from their initial longlist of seven. But they confined the battle for Best Play to four works: Stuff Happens, The History Boys, The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? and The Pillowman.

Without wishing to name it "best" of the year, five of the six judges argued forcefully to shortlist David Hare's political drama. "An important landmark in our theatre, with a rivetingly believable portrayal of George Bush," pronounced Nicholas de Jongh; "Broadminded, balanced, sharp," said Benedict Nightingale. It gave a brilliant description of the way in which political decisions are made, agreed Jane Edwardes, yet was, at times, " dramatically inert". Paul Taylor added his support, but also demurred - at the "self-regarding" nature of the piece.

So, surprisingly, Stuff Happens narrowly missed being shortlisted. Just beating it into the final three was The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, Edward Albee's parable about one man's passion for a four-legged animal and the limits of tolerance. It may have left poor Nightingale "disturbed and queasy", but he nevertheless voted it his play of the year. De Jongh's stronger stomach was not troubled by the " obsessive, transgressive" romance, though he balked at the moment the dead goat was brought on to the stage. Taylor added his voice, along with Georgina Brown, who helpfully commented: "This play is about the beast that lurks in us all."

Neck and neck with The Goat - and just as shocking - was Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman, which dwells on child abuse and murder in a totalitarian state. "Nasty, energetic, very violent," said Edwardes, with some admiration. "Crazily comic" too, Brown assured, "a play of enormous power - Kafkaesque, Pinteresque, but very McDonaghesque." Clapp and de Jongh lent more support, but it was not enough to see off this year's winner.

Brown and Edwardes were the first to champion Alan Bennett's entertaining education play, The History Boys. Still stronger praise came from Taylor: "It's absolutely current, clever and potent," with "all the best lines", added Clapp. So, though de Jongh sat on his hands, the other judges were enthusiastic enough to award The History Boys Best Play.

BEST ACTOR

A GOOD year for actors, the judges agreed, leaving the field wide open. De Jongh went out on a limb for Alex Jennings, "a comic joy, with the phoney charm and passive belligerence" of George Bush in Stuff Happens; but later argued more noisily in favour of Paul Rhys's "remarkable" Angelo in Simon McBurney's National Theatre production of Measure for Measure.

Nightingale made a case for Jasper Britton's Petruchio in Becket, "a fine performance in a very disappointing evening"; and Clapp spoke up for Ian McDiarmid's subtlety in Henry IV.

There was stronger support for Jonathan Pryce's lovestruck fool in The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? - " magnificent in his bewilderment and pain", said Brown, backed up by de Jongh - and for Jonny Lee Miller as the aggrieved son in the Almeida's first cast of Festen. "Heart-stopping," declared Taylor, to Clapp's obvious approval.

Stanley Townsend, though, was the first to make the shortlist. Clapp led the cry for his widower haunted by the ghost of his wife in Conor McPherson's Shining City. His, she said, was a "completely physical performance; he did so many things in a very small space". Joining him in the top three best actors was Douglas Hodge, a washed-up TV comic in Joe Penhall's Dumb Show, especially praised by Nightingale for the brilliant way in which he travelled from anxiety to collapse and defeat.

Just ahead of both of these, however, Richard Griffiths was declared the winner for his heartfelt and hearty master in The History Boys. Full of "underlying sadness", Taylor thought; "capturing the constant complexities of the play", Brown agreed; with, added Edwardes, an admirable lack of sentimentality.

BEST ACTRESS

THE judges found this year's stage a little bare of great female roles. They did, though, commend Gillian Anderson, Judi Dench, Claire Bloom, Annette Crosbie, Jane Asher, Kerry Fox, Frances Barber and Clare Higgins. De Jongh's lavish praise for Romola Garai's gauche and vivid Lucia Joyce in Calico caused a squabble over which category the young actress - an established film star, yet new to the stage - should be entered. De Jongh lost this one, and Garai was later considered for Outstanding Newcomer.

The shortlist emerged to include Pam Ferris, painfully convincing as the confused and frightened Alzheimer's sufferer in the poetic Notes on Falling Leaves, and Kelly Reilly, extraordinary as the manipulative and haughty aristocrat in After Miss Julie.

But it was Victoria Hamilton who took the award, as the traumatised young woman in Tennessee Williams's Suddenly Last Summer. Three judges were mesmerised by her monologue at the climax of the play, when she describes her cousin being torn limb from limb. "It held the theatre," Nightingale wistfully murmured.

ITV LONDON BEST MUSICAL

BEFORE the by now fractious jury got down to the business of Best Musical, they had to decide on the eligibility of the Trafalgar Studios revival of Simply Heavenly, shortlisted in 2003. Finally, they judged the vibrant Young Vic production not new this year and so disallowed it for 2004.

The debate moved on to Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Woman in White, which Brown and Edwardes were keen to shortlist. But it was pipped to the post by Edward Hall's energetic A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and John Doyle's imaginative Sweeney Todd, which, Clapp enthused, "took you right inside the skull of a madman".

It was the big, brash Producers that truly united the judges - if only briefly - during a long and entertaining meeting. Their decision to name Mel Brooks's "insane love letter to Broadway" Best Musical was unanimous. De Jongh loved its "broad humour" and vision of "Hitler and Nazism interpreted as grand kitsch", but Edwardes put it more simply: "Flawless," she declared.

THE SYDNEY EDWARDS AWARD FOR BEST DIRECTOR

MAX Stafford-Clark, Nicholas Hytner, Anthony Page and Gregory Doran were all mentioned before Luc Bondy was swiftly shortlisted for Cruel and Tender. "A stunning updating of Sophocles," Taylor, Clapp and Brown agreed.

But disagreement soon broke out when Katie Mitchell's Forties-set Iphigenia at Aulis and Simon McBurney's Measure for Measure tied. To Clapp's mind, McBurney deserved a place on the shortlist because he "rethought

the play brilliantly, turning it into an anti-romance"; he "got the sex industry so well," Taylor agreed. De Jongh weighed in on Mitchell's side: "The requisitioned country-house setting was terrifically well chosen," he argued. Nightingale saw both points of view, but marginally preferred Iphigenia, for its "intense poignancy". Finally, McBurney won through to the shortlist. The judges found the winner an easier decision to make. Strong support for Rufus Norris ensured that he walked off with the Best Director Award for Festen, only three years after he was named Outstanding Newcomer. Set during a birthday party that collapses under the weight of a dreadful family secret, "Festen is one of the greatest productions I've ever seen," Taylor pronounced. "Norris has really announced himself as a great director," added Clapp. Equally impressed, but more restrained, de Jongh praised "the haunting sense of ritual at the heart of the play, magnificently done".

BEST DESIGN

CHRISTOPHER Oram was commended for work on both Stuff Happens and Suddenly Last Summer. Lez Brotherston's design for Brighton Rock, Robert Jones's Venus and Adonis, and Bill Dudley's Woman in White were considered, too.

The shortlisting of Paul Brown, for the beautiful, shimmering atmosphere he gave The False Servant, and Hildegard Bechtler for the fading grandeur of her Iphigenia proved uncontroversial. More radical was the decision to shortlist jointly lighting designer Jean Kalman, sound designer Paul Arditti and set designer Ian MacNeil for their collaboration on Festen.

No one element could be singled out, argued Clapp, they all worked so effectively together. "Surprising inventiveness, with minimal furniture, and a soundscape that took you back to another time," de Jongh conceded. A "beautiful and functional design", concluded Taylor, before a healthy majority agreed to award the Festen trio.

THE CHARLES WINTOUR BURSARY FOR NEW PLAYWRITING

TO MARK the 50th Evening Standard Theatre Awards, the judges decided to widen the scope of Most Promising Playwright and make it a bursary for a writer who has impressed in the new millennium. The award comes with a £30,000 cheque, jointly donated by Lord Rothermere and Anna Wintour, in memory of her father, Charles Wintour, former editor of The Evening Standard and instigator of the awards.

Henry Adams, Marcos Barbosa, Che Walker, John Retallack and Simon Stephens were among the names discussed. But the shortlist settled on Rebecca Lenkiewicz, whose Night Season showed promise this year; David Eldridge, whose adaptation of Festen was admired; and Owen McCafferty, for his Belfast-set Scenes from the Big Picture in 2003. The judges agreed overwhelmingly to award the bursary to McCafferty, "a writer with a real talent for dark comedy".

OUTSTANDING NEWCOMER

MICHAEL Jibson for Brighton Rock, Rebecca Johnson in Mourning Becomes Electra and Natalia Tena in Gone to Earth were among those discussed before a list of four was drawn up.

In a rare moment of solidarity, Nightingale sided with de Jongh to shortlist Romola Garai (Calico); de Jongh also won support for Ben Whishaw's vulnerable young Hamlet. Two of the female judges went for Dominic Cooper ("delicious" confided Brown), in The History Boys and His Dark Materials. But the eventual winner was Eddie Redmayne ("an electric performer," said Taylor), revealing extraordinary range as the troubled gay son in The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?

SPECIAL AWARDS

NOTING that the list of past winners over the 50 years of these awards reads as a history of the London stage, de Jongh announced three Special Awards to mark the anniversary: to Dame Judi Dench, Harold Pinter and the National Theatre, in recognition of their unique contributions during the past five decades.

JUDGING PANEL

THE Judges for the 2004 Evening Standard Theatre Awards were theatre critics Georgina Brown (The Mail on Sunday), Susannah Clapp ( The Observer), Nicholas de Jongh (Evening Standard), Jane Edwardes (Time Out), Benedict Nightingale (The Times) and Paul Taylor (The Independent). Veronica Wadley, editor of the Evening Standard, chaired the meeting.

Highlights of the 50th Evening Standard Theatre Awards will be shown on ITV London tomorrow at 11.30pm

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