Cabaret leads Olivier Award nominees

London

A REVIVAL of Cabaret, which has been a topic of conversation in London for its sky-high ticket prices as much as for its stellar cast, dominated the nominations for this year's Olivier Awards - Britain's equivalent of the Tonys - that were announced on Tuesday (Mar 8).

The musical secured 11 nominations including a nod for best musical revival, as well as for best actor and actress in a musical for its stars Eddie Redmayne and Jessie Buckley.

Its prominence was perhaps unsurprising given the acclaim Cabaret has received since opening in December in a production that transforms the West End's Playhouse Theatre into a seedy nightclub straight out of 1920s Berlin.

Audiences enter the show through the theatre's backstage corridors, and can even have a pre-show meal once inside - partly explaining why tickets cost up to £325 (S$582).

Matt Wolf, reviewing the show for The New York Times, called it "nerve-shredding" for its portrayal of a world on the verge of Nazism.

Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph called it "2021's kill-for-a-ticket theatrical triumph", suggesting readers "dig like your life depended on it into your pockets" to pay for a ticket.

Even with such praise, Cabaret faces stiff competition in the musical categories, especially from a revival of Kathleen Marshall's 2011 Broadway production of Anything Goes at the Barbican.

Anything Goes secured 9 nominations including for best musical revival and a best actress nomination for Sutton Foster as Reno Sweeney.

Foster won a Tony in 2011 for the same role.

In the non-musical categories, the nominations are led by Life of Pi, Lolita Chakrabarti's adaptation of Yann Martel's bestselling novel telling the story of a boy stuck on a lifeboat with a tiger.

That play, at Wyndham's Theatre, has secured 9 nods, including a best supporting actor nomination for the 7 puppeteers who bring the tiger to life.

Life of Pi was also nominated for best new play, where it is up against 2:22: A Ghost Story, a haunted-house thriller that was at the Noel Coward Theatre, Cruise, a tale set in London's Soho in the 80s (that was at the Duchess Theatre), and Best of Enemies, James Graham's play about the rancorous 1968 TV debates between William F Buckley and Gore Vidal that was at the Young Vic.

One of the most highly contested categories is likely to be best actress in a play. Cush Jumbo, who is nominated for her performance as Hamlet at the Young Vic, is up against Emma Corrin, nominated for her role in ANNA X at the Harold Pinter Theatre, singer Lily Allen for 2:22: A Ghost Story and Sheila Atim for a revival of Constellations, at the Vaudeville Theatre.

The winners will be announced in a ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall in London on April 10. NYTIMES