The Daily Telegraph - Features
The Oliviers show that Lloyd Webber’s still the best in town
The 2024 Oliviers delivered the shock of the old, and put a smile on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s face. A mighty seven awards for Sunset Boulevard confirmed that – at the age of 76 and more than 50 years after Jesus Christ Superstar stormed the Palace Theatre – the world’s most successful musicals composer still has what it takes to lord it over the West End and show the kids how it’s done, even with a musical from 1993.
Of course, the initial credit for Sunset Boulevard sweeping the boards last night – its haul rivalling the record for a musical set by Matilda, and matched by Hamilton and Cabaret – must go to Jamie Lloyd. His visionary direction dared to strip back Lloyd Webber’s adaptation (with Don Black and Christopher Hampton) of Billy Wilder’s classic 1950 film noir. Relying mainly on busy choreography and video wizardry – as opposed to palatial Hollywood opulence – was the perfect revitalising touch. Lloyd was vindicated too in casting Nicole Scherzinger as the reclusive silent screen star Norma Desmond.
The primary vindication, though, lies with Lloyd Webber himself – who endured brickbats and upsets when Sunset was in the West End first time round, with rewrites required early on and no Olivier Awards. In fact, when you compare the haul this year with Lloyd Webber’s previous wins – even Phantom only picked up a couple – you realise that this production now not only has the wind in its sails as it heads to Broadway, but the show stands confirmed as one of ALW’s best.
A bonanza is good for headlines, and, sure, there’s a sense of the industry patting their man on the back for all his past good works. But people aren’t paying lip service to his status; as witnessed in the past decade with Jamie Lloyd’s Evita and Timothy Sheader’s Jesus Christ Superstar,
both radical takes at Regent’s Park, the next generation want to reimagine that gilded backcatalogue, embrace his legacy.
Still, there’s no shortage of British talent queuing up behind him. The award for Best New Musical rightly went to runaway sensation Operation Mincemeat,
a springy account of wartime subterfuge by SpitLip, with Jak Malone getting a deserved supporting role gong for sounding the show’s most poignant notes as MI5 secretary Hester Leggatt (who now has a plaque at the Fortune Theatre).
Elsewhere, James Graham’s Dear England, which probes the psychological trials and gentlemanly reboot of Gareth Southgate’s tenure as England manager, won Best New Play in a very strong field, a back-of-thenet triumph for populist theatre. Nice for Harry Kane – in the guise of Will Close (Best Actor in a Supporting Role) – to finally win something, too.
If Close’s teasing impersonation raises a smile, it’s hard not to go misty-eyed over the counterpart supporting actress award, which went to the late Haydn Gwynne for playing Stanley Baldwin in Jack Thorne’s play about Churchill, BBC head John Reith and the General Strike. Nominated four times before, how sad she didn’t get to see her belated win. That puts into perspective the fact that Sheridan Smith – battered after those early closing notices for Opening Night
– didn’t walk away with the Best Actress award for Shirley Valentine. Shezza will live to fight another day and surely wow fans again in her own inimitable way.