The Olivier Awards at the Royal Albert Hall, photo by Pamela Raith
There is something wonderfully apt about the Olivier Awards, this year with Cunard, reaching their half-century in a season as rich as this one – as we’ve discussed here before, every show on the nominee list feels as though it’s rightfully earned its place. Ahead of Sunday evening at the Royal Albert Hall, let’s make some farfetched guesses about who’s going home with the hardware.
We’ve only done a selection of categories here – sometimes there’s only so many hours in the day to do idle predicting!
Best Actress: Rosamund Pike for Inter Alia
Pike gave a scorching central performance in the world premiere of Inter Alia at the National Theatre, playing fictional crown court judge Jessica Parks in playwright Suzie Miller’s follow-up to Prima Facie, which won WhatsOnStage, Tony and Olivier Award glory for Jodie Comer. It’s the sort of formidable, multi-rolling performance that is an easy draw for Oliviers panels and voters. Pike took the Critics’ Circle Award for Best Actress in March, which feels like a significant bellwether. The competition from Rosie Sheehy (Guess How Much I Love You?), Julia McDermott (Weather Girl), Cate Blanchett (The Seagull), and Marianne Jean-Baptiste (All My Sons) is formidable – this is, by any measure, an exceptional year for stage acting.
Best Actress in a Musical: Rachel Zegler for Evita
Zegler made headlines throughout the Palladium run by leaving the stage during each performance to sing “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” from the theatre’s outdoor balcony to the general public – a piece of Jamie Lloyd theatre-making that redefined what that iconic number could mean. It was bold, it was talked about, and it was exactly the kind of coup de théâtre that awards voters tend not to forget. Plus – it was only a brief interlude during a two-hour tour-de-force where Zegler rarely let up. It was a remarkable professional stage musical debut. Given she’s won a WhatsOnStage Award, Standard Theatre Award and Stage Debut Award, an Olivier feels likely as a next step.
Best Actor: Bryan Cranston for All My Sons
Ivo van Hove’s revival of Arthur Miller received six nominations in total, including recognition for Cranston alongside Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hayley Squires and Paapa Essiedu, and for van Hove’s direction. Cranston brings all the weight and moral complexity his film and television career has accumulated to bear on Joe Keller. The competition is stiff — Tom Hiddleston’s Much Ado has been rapturously received, David Shields is electric in Punch (he feels like the likely other option), Sean Hayes is widely loved for Good Night, Oscar, and Jack Holden’s nominated turn in Kenrex has been gaining momentum since its original Sheffield season. But Cranston, in a Miller play, in a van Hove production, at Wyndham’s? That’s a difficult hand to beat.
Best Actor in a Musical: James Hameed and Arti Shah for Paddington The Musical
One of the most joyful and quietly radical things about Paddington The Musical is the way it solves the question of how to stage its beloved central character. Both James Hameed and Arti Shah received nominations for Best Actor in a Musical — two actors working in seamless concert to bring one of the most recognisable figures in British children’s literature to life. It is puppetry and performance and something harder to name, and it is entirely unlike anything else in this year’s field. A win here would be one of the night’s most warmly received moments.
Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Paapa Essiedu for All My Sons
There is a pleasing completeness to All My Sons securing nominations up and down the card, and of all the performances in that production, Essiedu’s feels the most likely to take the trophy. Already one of the most compelling actors of his generation, Essiedu went toe-to-toe with Cranston and shone.
Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Musical: Tom Edden for Paddington The Musical
Tom Edden’s nomination for Mr Curry in Paddington is his second in a row, following his nod for Waiting for Godot last year – which tells you something about the kind of performer he is. In Paddington, Edden deploys every last ounce of his considerable technique in service of the laughs. In a supporting musical category that also features strong contenders from Into the Woods and The Producers, the smart money is on the bear’s most reluctant neighbour.
Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Julie Hesmondhalgh for Punch
Yet another stacked category, but we have to predict that the work done by Julie Hesmondhalgh as one of the most pivotal parts of James Graham’s Punch, taking on so many facets of grief, redemption and forgiveness, just feels like the right nominee to put weight behind.
Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Musical
If you want the honest answer – we have absolutely no idea.
The nominees are Tracie Bennett for Here We Are, Amy Booth-Steel for Paddington, Kate Fleetwood for Into the Woods, Victoria Hamilton-Barritt for Paddington, and Georgina Onuorah for Shucked, and while Paddington may have the momentum, if the Paddington vote divides, Fleetwood could walk through the gap and straight to the podium.
Best New Play: Punch by James Graham
James Graham’s Punch picks up four nominations including Best New Play, so could he pick up another gong after winning in that category in 2024 for Dear England? Punch has generated the kind of fierce, urgent conversation that only the very best new plays manage. That said, we wouldn’t complain if Kenrex, 1536 or Inter Alia picked up the prize.
Best New Musical: Paddington The Musical
Paddington The Musical, which stars a life-like puppet Paddington Bear with music and lyrics by McFly’s Tom Fletcher and book by Jessica Swale, has received rave reviews since opening in November, and its 11 nominations reflect both its technological and production-oriented success. It feels like a dead cert at this point.
Best Revival of a Play: All My Sons
Though Much Ado About Nothing, Arcadia and The Seagull were all loved, All My Sons has been near-universally adored for its time in the West End. The Critics’ Circle, at least, had no hesitation in giving it prizes. Van Hove’s production took the Critics’ Circle Award for Best Revival of a Play or Musical, a significant statement of intent from the professional critics who saw everything this season.
Best Musical Revival: And Now, the Really Interesting One
Here’s where it gets complicated.
Evita at The London Palladium and Into the Woods at the Bridge Theatre are nominated for Best Musical Revival, alongside The Producers and the Almeida’s American Psycho. It feels as though the first two are the biggies, but the likely winner is near-impossible to call.
In most years, Evita would arrive as the overwhelming favourite. Lloyd’s production was an event, Zegler’s balcony performance became a defining London theatre image, and the Lloyd brand carries enormous prestige with voters, following Sunset Boulevard wowing on both sides of the Atlantic.
And yet. Into the Woods, Jordan Fein’s production at the Bridge, has the kind of momentum that producers dream of. The Critics’ Circle gave it the inaugural prize for Best Ensemble or Cast, while Tom Scutt took Best Designer.
On critical consensus, on that ineffable sense of a production that arrived at exactly the right moment and hasn’t lost its heat to a cold and wet autumn after an Evita summer, we give the edge to Into the Woods. Let’s face it – whoever triumphs, the real winners are us, the theatregoing public, for having so much great theatre to watch!
