13th Apr2015

Olivier Awards – Theatre

by timbaros

images-358Theatre’s big night took place last night at London’s Royal Opera House and it was Sunny Afternoon – a musical about The Kinks musical group – that took four awards at the ceremony. A View From The Bridge, which started it’s life at the Young Vic and which is now playing at The Wyndham Theatre, took three awards including one for Mark Strong for Best Actor. In the highly contested Best Actress in a musical, it was Katie Brayben taking the gong for playing songwriter Carole King in the newly opening musical Beautiful. The show ended with special award winner Kevin Spacey singing Bridge Over Troubled Water with Memphis the Musical’s Beverly Knight.
Complete winners below.

SPECIAL AWARDS
Sylvie Guillem and Kevin Spacey

BEST ACTRESS
Penelope Wilton for Taken At Midnight
Theatre Royal Haymarket

images-359

BEST ACTOR
Mark Strong for A View From The Bridge
Young Vic & Wyndham’s Theatre

BEST ACTRESS IN A MUSICAL
Katie Brayben for Beautiful – The Carole King Musical
Aldwych Theatre

BEST ACTOR IN A MUSICAL
John Dagleish for Sunny Afternoon
Hampstead Theatre & Harold Pinter Theatre

MASTERCARD BEST NEW MUSICAL
Sunny Afternoon
Hampstead Theatre & Harold Pinter Theatre

VIRGIN ATLANTIC BEST NEW PLAY
King Charles III
Almeida Theatre & Wyndham’s Theatre

THIS MORNING AUDIENCE AWARD
Wicked
Apollo Victoria Theatre

MAGIC RADIO BEST MUSICAL REVIVAL
City Of Angels
Donmar Warehouse

BEST REVIVAL
A View From The Bridge
Young Vic & Wyndham’s Theatre

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Angela Lansbury for Blithe Spirit
Gielgud Theatre

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Nathaniel Parker for Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies
Aldwych Theatre

BEST DIRECTOR
Ivo Van Hove for A View From The Bridge
Young Vic & Wyndham’s Theatre

BEST NEW COMEDY
The Play That Goes Wrong
Duchess Theatre

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MUSICAL
Lorna Want for Beautiful – The Carole King Musical
Aldwych Theatre

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MUSICAL
George Maguire for Sunny Afternoon
Hampstead Theatre & Harold Pinter Theatre

WHITE LIGHT AWARD FOR BEST LIGHTING DESIGN
Howard Harrison for City Of Angels
Donmar Warehouse

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Christopher Oram for Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies
Aldwych Theatre

BEST SOUND DESIGN
Gareth Owen for Memphis The Musical
Shaftesbury Theatre

XL VIDEO AWARD FOR BEST SET DESIGN
Es Devlin for The Nether
Duke of York’s Theatre

BEST THEATRE CHOREOGRAPHER
Sergio Trujillo for Memphis The Musical
Shaftesbury Theatre

AUTOGRAPH SOUND AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN MUSIC
Ray Davies for Sunny Afternoon
Hampstead Theatre & Harold Pinter Theatre

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN AN AFFILIATE THEATRE
Bull
The Maria at the Young Vic

BEST NEW OPERA PRODUCTION
The Mastersingers Of Nuremberg
London Coliseum

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN OPERA
Richard Jones for his direction of The Girl Of The Golden West, The Mastersingers Of Nuremberg and Rodelinda
London Coliseum

BEST NEW DANCE PRODUCTION
32 Rue Vandenbranden by Peeping Tom
Barbican
&
Mats Ek’s Juliet And Romeo by Royal Swedish Ballet
Sadler’s Wells

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN DANCE
Crystal Pite for her choreography in the productions of The Associates – A Picture Of You Falling, The Tempest Replica and Polaris
Sadler’s Wells

BEST ENTERTAINMENT AND FAMILY
La Soirée
La Soirée Spiegeltent

Off
01st Nov2014

Memphis the Musical – Theatre

by timbaros

Memphis, 2014, Credit: Johan Persson/Memphis was the birthplace of, and a magnet for, so many world famous musicians and singers, including Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Percy Sledge and Wilson Pickett. It is also the place where Elvis Presley lived, and died. Memphis is so synonymous with music that it’s only fitting that a musical would come along with the same name – Memphis.

Just opened at the Shaftsbury Theatre in London’s West End, Memphis the Musical is a look at a time when Memphis the city was not what it is today – sixty years ago it was very very different. Blacks were still seen as second class citizens, nightclubs and cinemas were racially segregated, and inter-racial marriage was illegal. Radio stations also discriminated – each played music for a specific audience, and racial integration was purely not allowed. This is explored in Memphis the Musical when white musician Huey (Killian Donnelly) falls in love with black female singer Felicia (Beverly Knight).

Huey works as a stock boy in a department store. He visits Delray’s – a black rock and roll bar where he is the only white person – and falls in love with the music, as well as taking a shine to Felicia, who sings at the club her brother Delray (Rolan Bell) owns. Back at the store Huey asks his boss if he can play music over the store’s loudspeakers. His boss agrees, and soon enough customers like what they hear and buy the records in droves. But the boss doesn’t like the fact that Huey played black music, so he gets fired.

Having realized that he really loves this music, Huey applies for a job as a DJ at various radio stations in town but at one station he sneaks into the DJ booth and plays the music that he thinks people want to hear – the black music. The music, and him, are a hit, and his romance with Felicia heats up, much to the dismay of Delray, and Huey’s racist mother Gladys (Claire Machin).
Huey wants to play Felicia’s first song at his radio station, but before he is able to he gets into a row with his mom, and the record breaks, and Felicia runs out and they realize that keeping their relationship together is going to be difficult. Things get more complicated for them when they are seen kissing by a group of white men, who proceed to beat them up, rendering Felicia’s face very bloody. It’s expected that everything works out between them and they live happily ever after. But it’s the journey of getting to the expected that makes Memphis the Musical worth watching.

From the art deco department store to Huey’s living room, to the interiors of Delray’s to the lone radio DJ booth on stage – it’s a set that works very well on the small stage. The backup dancers do their damndest to entertain us – and they do. There’s lots of them on stage at the same time, and it’s amazing that they don’t hit each other while swinging their arms and legs. And it wouldn’t be a very good musical without the excellent music, done by Bon Jovi keyboardist David Bryan, who collaborated with Joe DiPietro. Both Bryan and DiPietro won Tony Awards for this show’s music when it premiered first on Broadway in 2010. However, it’s Knight who gets top billing, and she doesn’t disappoint. Knight, who last year starred in the West End’s Bodyguard, shows us here that she has perhaps found another calling – from being a top pop singer to being West End’s newest diva. This girl can sing! The stage is hers and hers alone. She is able to belt out blues, rock and gospel and still amaze. Donnelly, who was the only good thing in the very dull The Commitments, looks very comfortable in his role as Huey. But he appears to be just going through the motions. Sure he can sing the socks off of us, but he looks like he’s not making much of an effort. He’s a natural on stage but he needs to be more than that, he needs to take it a few notches higher. But at the end of the day it’s Knight’s show, so go see and hear the West End’s newest Diva – Beverly Knight – she’s fabulous.