Critics take the stage
The Critics Circle Awards ceremony at the Prince of Wales yesterday was the usual mix of back-slapping, veiled insults, false modesty and gushing compliments. And that was just the critics. The recipients fought back gallantly, but Derek Jacobi simply admitted defeat and said virtually nothing.
How could he possibly follow the gargantuan Ian Shuttleworth looming ironically over the enormous Ella Smith from Fat Pig? Not so much who you know, as sumo you know.
Or Georgina Brown — “our very own leggy bird of paradise” host and drama section chair Mark Shenton called her, in a link from La Cage aux Folles’ triumph — opining in such unbelievably posh tones that family life in Wolverhampton was more serene than in Oklahoma (setting of best play winner August:Osage County)?
Not to mention retiring Time Out theatre editor Jane Edwardes pulling a few funny faces (I think they were supposed to be funny) in calling up Jacobi. No wonder he fell curiously silent.
And they all had to follow comedian Arthur Smith suggesting that, as times got harder, the critics would hold next year’s ceremony in a scout hall to honour David Dimbleby in Charley’s Aunt and that Andrew Lloyd Webber made the potato-faced Arthur feel handsome.
ALW’s daughter Imogen was on hand to wince at the remark while spiritedly using the occasion to hand out leaflets for her West End producing debut with Sadie Frost, Touched…for the very first time.
We were all touched, but not for the very first time at all, when Margaret Tyzack received her best actress award and the loudest ovation of the ceremony. Penelope Wilton, her co-star in The Chalk Garden, stood graciously by, consoled by the fact that she and Tyzack shared the best actress award from the Evening Standard.
That newspaper was wittily invoked by Michael Billington in summoning Kevin R McNally to the stage to accept the best actor gong on behalf of Kenneth Branagh, away filming. McNally had played Lebedev opposite Branagh’s Ivanov, but the character was no relation to the Russian oligarch who has just bought the ailing title from Associated Newspapers.
Michael Grandage, best director, reminded us that Nicholas de Jongh had once dubbed him “the lavatory cleaner” of directors but he said this warmly, flushed with success, not round the bend with righteousness.
“My name’s Tracy, and I am a man…” began Tracy Letts, author of August:Osage County before saying that the Steppenwolf actors (”We live in Chicago because we want to”) were keener to come to London than they were to go to New York. He’d heard some folk do down the National Theatre and was having none of it: “That place is a by God treasure.”
David Tennant was away filming, but his award was graciously accepted by his Gertrude, Penny Downie, who described the electricity of the last week of performances when Tennant returned after back surgery.
On a personal note, I enjoyed conversations with William Gaunt and his charming daughter Tilly, Mark Hadfield of the RSC, Tracie Bennett and Paula Wilcox from La Cage, their director Terry Johnson, Thelma Holt, Michael Grandage and Imo Lloyd Webber.
The best speeches were probably those of Dominic Cavendish on David Tennant’s Hamlet and Claire Allfree on Tyzack, but everyone said something interesting, which makes a great change from most awards ceremonies.
And the Prince of Wales proved the ideal venue once again, with everyone having a jolly good drink and chat, all hostilities suspended, before dispersing into the cold wintry afternoon around Leicester Square. A good job, a fine occasion.