Edward Bennett received the biggest cheer of  many big cheers last night when he went on stage yet again for David Tennant. The brilliant young actor who played Hamlet twenty-one times in London while Tennant had back surgery, popped up in the middle of the Whatsonstage awards concert at the Prince of Wales to accept the “theatre event of the year” prize.

“David’s very sorry he can’t be here tonight,” he said, “but I kicked him in the back again.”

This was in keeping with the nice edgy tone of the evening during which James Corden, hosting what he called “the whatsies” for the second year with his offstage partner Sheridan Smith, cast aspersions on Pierce Brosnan’s manliness (”like being beaten up by a rainbow”), poured scorn on the very idea of a lighting award (and was immediately plunged into revenge darkness) and cringed in excessive mock adulation in front of pop legends Ray Davis of the Kinks and Bob Gaudio of the Four Seasons.

Not to be outdone, Sheridan referred to the Perfect Pitch songs as “Perfect Piss” and changed her white dress for a black one after the interval, during which she and James had indulged in one or two pints — of wine.

The wine certainly flowed, but we only had one spillage in the VIP area, and a mop was soon found behind the long bar in the Delfont Room. As I scurried around with the kitchen utensils, Greg Doran, associate director of the RSC, was not alone in thinking I had found my true role in life at last. Terry Johnson introduced me to his delightful daughter, saying that although I was a critic I was reasonably normal, a description I took in the spirit it was offered — as  a sly, veiled insult.

Excellent! I really do think we should all be as rude about each other as possible on the offchance that the Muslims might join in one day. And that, in a nutshell, is, I think, the point of Richard Bean’s England People Very Nice at the National.

Michael Grandage, who only won the best director award for about ten shows, said that “this means more to me than I can possibly tell you” and instantly scooped another, for the most boring acceptance speech, dutifully flanked by his executive director James Bierman and casting associate Anne McNulty.

Eddie Izzard arrived early because he had to dash off somewhere, but after receiving his solo performance award, seemed to hang around for ever. What a nice guy! We were chatting about one of his early shows and he couldn’t remember whether or not he was was wearing a dress for that one. He dived into a tray of crisps that was being monopolised by La Cage aux Folles choreographer Lynne Page’s parents, who’d come all the way from Hampshire, and talked as easily to them as if he’d known them for years.

The concert itself, produced by Stuart Piper and Jason Haigh-Ellery, directed by Russell Labey, went at a fair old lick, with stand-out individual contributions from Niki Evans, Elena Roger and Siobhan McCarthy and an eye-boggling extract of unbelievable and irresistible naffness from the recent Broadway show Xanadu. Take cover if you hear it’s coming to London.

A packed house really did join in the party spirit, and the whole evening was benevolently supervised by the Prince of Wales’s general manager, the one and only Graham Sykes; other Delfont Mackintosh bigwigs who made us feel welcome included chief executive Richard Johnston and operations director Billy Differ. Mary behind the bar was a rock, too.

Connie Fisher told me that she’d won £50,000 on Who Wants to be a Celebrity Millionaire and had given half of that sum to TheatreMAD, the evening’s benefiting charity. She was raring to go, too, on the national tour of The Sound of Music. 

Sophie Thompson was a bundle of hilarious nerves, Ray Shell was cool, charming and collected as usual and Kim Crisswell was laughing so much, and shaking her extraordinary hairstyle in my face with such vigour, that I couldn’t understand what she was telling me. Not that I minded. Just standing in front of her is like warming your bum on a lovely winter fire.

Well done everyone, well voted Whatsonstagers, all 35,000 of you, and James and Sheridan — please come back next year — as Dick Emery used to say in one of his unfunny drag disguises — “Ooh, you are awful; but I like you!”

This entry was posted on Monday, February 16th, 2009 at 10:07 am and is filed under Michael Coveney. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.