Bravo, London: Enchanting backstage moments at the 63rd London Evening Standard Theatre Awards

Evgeny Lebedev, owner of the Evening Standard  and co-host of the London Evening Standard Theatre Awards, celebrates a glorious year for culture in the capital 
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Welcome to the special Theatre Awards edition of ES Magazine.

I write, a little delicate but happy, after a long and liquid night celebrating another triumphant year for the London stage at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.

Reflecting through the bleary-eyed prism of the morning after, we could not have chosen a more fitting venue. Drury Lane is not only one of London’s more beautiful theatres, it is reputedly its most haunted. First built on its present site in 1663, the theatre’s location is also the oldest in continuous use.

Glenda Jackson has not been in continuous theatrical use, it is true, thanks to her lengthy stint on the Labour backbenches — although thanks are hardly due to a career diversion that robbed the stage of one of its greatest performers for a quarter of a century.

Co-hosts of the London Evening Standard Theatre Awards Evgeny Lebedev in Gucci, DAME Anna Wintour in custom Margiela, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Cate Blanchett in Alexander McQueen

You can no more take politics out of the theatre, as Abraham Lincoln would agree, than remove the theatre from politics. Having Lin-Manuel Miranda co-hosting the awards with Dame Anna Wintour, Cate Blanchett and myself drove this home. Lin-Manuel’s thrillingly original Broadway smash, Hamilton: An American Musical, uses hip-hop to bring Alexander Hamilton alive to audiences for whom that Founding Father is barely an echo from the turbulent early American political era of the late 18th century.

Like everyone else, I can’t wait to see it at the Victoria Palace Theatre.

Keira Knightley in Valentino 

We are living through a turbulent political era ourselves. At the end of a year marked by divisions, racial and otherwise, one of the evening’s highlights for me was the absurdly multitalented Arinzé Kene singing ‘A Change is Gonna Come’. In dark and gloomy days, we look to the artistic world for light and hope. Arinzé’s exquisite version of Sam Cooke’s hauntingly hopeful 1964 civil rights ballad supplied it.

Compère of the London Evening Standard Theatre Awards Phoebe Waller-Bridge in Burberry

The London stage is not immune to controversy as our sensational compère Phoebe Waller-Bridge referenced with a hilarious barrage of oblique and not so oblique jokes. Many a true word is spoken in jest. There, too, as the angelically devilish Phoebe predicted to raucous cheers, change is gonna come.

But some things never change. One is the inexhaustible stream of spectacular new talent that flows on to the London stage. We will be seeing much more of Tom Glynn-Carney, who recalled in his speech that a couple of years ago he watched the ceremony from the upper circle as a drama student. Tom deservedly won the Emerging Talent Award for his portrayal of an embryonic IRA rebel in The Ferryman, Jez Butterworth’s epic, set in rural Armagh in 1981 when the affairs of Northern Ireland were such a political headache for Downing Street. Thank heavens that’s a thing of the past.

Winner of the Milton Shulman Award for Best Director SAM MENDES in Prada and presenter of the award HELEN McCRORY in Roksanda

Two other precious constants are the eternal genius of Shakespeare and the timeless brilliance of Glenda Jackson. While you cannot take the politics out of theatre, this politician did take herself out of politics, and returned to the theatre in Deborah Warner’s production of King Lear on the London stage.

Delighted as I was that Jez and Sam Mendes won for Best Play and Best Director respectively on a glorious night for The Ferryman, and indeed by all of the awards, none gave me purer pleasure than Glenda taking Best Actress for her unforgettably bold gender-busting performance as the crazy, paranoid old ruler raging against the treachery of ingrates.

Winner of Best Actor in partnership with Ambassador Theatre Group ANDREW GARFIELD in Gucci

Unthinkably, this was her very first Evening Standard Theatre Award. In fact, in an acceptance speech confirming brevity to be the soul of wit, she claimed she has never once had a good notice from the newspaper as either actor or MP. Glenda, I hope this goes some way in making up for that, and in healing at least one division that persisted too long.

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