Richard Wilson follows Ned’s Standard
It was a tough act to follow, but Richard Wilson got it absolutely right as the late Ned Sherrin’s stand-in as host of the Evening Standard’s drama awards at the Savoy yesterday. He was funny without straining, pointing out that not everyone who deserves an award is necessarily nominated. He, for instance, had appeared in the West End this year…
I was fortunate to be seated on a table in Ned’s memory with his great friends Alistair Beaton and Victoria Mather, his agent Deke Arlon and the producer Michael Codron. We all gave Richard two thumbs up as we tucked into our citrus infused tian of Cornish crab and rosemary encrusted loin of lamb. One thumb for the lamb.
Eileen Atkins, presenting the best actor award to Patrick Stewart, said she was so cold she couldn’t remember why she was there and was planning to strip all the men at her table and steal their clothes. There was a huge rush of suits in her direction as she sat down. Tom Stoppard and John Mortimer thought about it and then stayed put.
Rupert Goold, best director for Macbeth, said that there was no point in working in theatre unless you took risks. On that note, Anne-Marie Duff, the hugely deserving best actress for Saint Joan, paid tribute to Mike Alfreds at drama school and a brilliant Scotsman (”Not you, Richard, sorry mate!”), her film star partner James McEvoy.
Veronica Wadley, editor of the Standard, committed her newspaper to the campaign to raise funds towards the £250m needed to refurbish all the West End theatres and the lovely Sophie Okonedo presented a special award to Stephen Tompkins, the brilliant architect who has so imaginatively transformed the Royal Court and the Young Vic.
Other presenters who said something useful were Sam West, asking for artistic directors to run the Bristol Old Vic, not cultural entrepreneurs (though they’d better be better ones than the cut-and-run David Farr and the hapless Simon Reade); and Sheila Hancock who eulogised Sherrin as a true man of the theatre, an enthusiast in an age of cynicism. She also pointed out that Ned was never an old fart, but first in line on the cutting edge with Stephen Sondheim and Joan Littlewood, to name but two.
Hancock then asked, “What’s all this about too much musical theatre?” Good on you, Sheila, even if she was insulting the host newspaper whose critic, Nicholas de Jongh, feels there is something inherently superior about plays over shows. Which reminds me of another great Ned anecdote. He overheard a blue rinse lady coming out of a heavy Eugene O’Neill production turn to her friend and say, not without feeling, “Well, dear, I think that was more of a play than a show.”
