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Zimmerman Roasts Industry, Acceptance Excerpts

For the second year in a row, the Laurence Olivier Awards was not televised. Although the disadvantages to the lack of television coverage are obvious, the change of format – from a mid-week, lunchtime affair to a lavish, Sunday evening sit-down dinner – does make for more interesting, live entertainment.

Better Late Than Never

The theme for this year’s entertainment was Cole Porter with, what was scheduled to be, four acts interspersing the meal courses and awards presentations. However, the first of these, Simply Heavenly co-stars Clive Rowe and Ruby Turner’s “Every Time You Say Goodbye” duet, went a bit awry.

Due to confusion over the call times, when presenter Richard Wilson announced the act, no one appeared. After a moment, a breathless Rowe, who’d raced down from his room in the hotel to have a mike immediately thrust into his hand, entered from the ballroom’s side door and launched into song as he made his way through the audience. But Turner still didn’t appear and Rowe was forced to ad lib his way until the end – “this is where I’m meant to dance with my partner but, as you can see, I’m partnerless” he said, adding in response to the audience’s laughter, “you think I’m joking?”

Wilson, who’d earlier warned winners that they would be marked for minimalism in their acceptance speeches, joked that the no-show Turner was “pure minimalism. You can’t get much more minimal than that.” Luckily, Rowe and Turner were coaxed back to open the post-dinner half of the ceremony with the number as rehearsed, dance sequence and all, to rousing applause.

Zimmerman Adds Zest

Turning up the heat even further in the second half of the evening’s entertainment was The Producers’ bombshell and Best Actress in a Musical nominee Leigh Zimmerman, who sang a scurrilous version of Porter’s “Let’s Do It”, in which the lyrics were rewritten by her singer-actor husband Domenick Allen to reflect the past year and upcoming months in the West End.

As the Old Vic artistic director and his entourage watched on from a front-and-centre table, the lyric that raised the most eyebrows noted that “Kevin Spacey on his mobile phone, denied it” in reference to the tabloid frenzy over the actor’s late night mugging in a London park last spring.

With many of the other subjects of the song’s jibes also in the star-studded audience, additional lyrics to raise laughs included: “flat on her back, Kim Cattrall does it”, “Jonathan Pryce with a goat does it”, “If Michael Ball can train that rat, they might do it”, “Richard Dreyfuss when he hurt his back, blew it”, “shows that have their orchestras on track do it”, “Guys and Dolls will endure through it, if Ewan McGregor can sing in tune”, “Nathan Lane for half the gross does it”, and “Acorn Antiques even do it, for £60 in the stalls”. But our very favourite line from Zimmerman’s number was: “The Whatsonstage gossip page does it”. Fame at last! (To read the song's full lyrics, click here.)

The evening’s other acts were The History Boys’ and double Whatsonstage.com Award winner Samuel Barnett singing “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”, TV reality show Musicality’s contestants Rebecca Dent (now in Saturday Night Fever) and Donna Hazelton (now in Chicago) singing “Anything Goes”, and The Woman in White’s Martin Crewes and Jill Paice performing a Porter medley.

Acceptance Highlights

Most of the presenters and winners adhered to Wilson’s “minimalist” edict. However, amongst highlights from the evening’s acceptance speeches were:

Play Winners

For an overview of the Oliviers & other awards in Features, click here

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