The Snubs and Surprises of the 2025 Olivier Awards
When the nominees for the Olivier Awards — Britain's equivalent to the Tonys — were announced last month, a revival of the 1964 musical 'Fiddler on the Roof' dominated, with 13 nominations. At the awards ceremony on Sunday night, though, the list of winners was more balanced: 'Fiddler' took home three trophies; as did 'Giant,' which starred John Lithgow as Roald Dahl; and a folk music adaptation of 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.'
Matt Wolf and Houman Barekat, The New York Times's London theater critics, discussed the winners and the productions that missed out with Eleanor Stanford, a Times contributor.
New productions like 'Giant' and 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' were among the big winners on Sunday night. What does that say about the state of British theater?
BAREKAT It's heartening, especially when you consider that neither of these plays sound particularly promising on paper: Benjamin Button reimagined as an English fisherman, set to Cornish folk music; Roald Dahl squabbling with his publisher about blowback from an inflammatory article. And yet both were staged successfully. It tells us that, when the industry is prepared to take risks, theatergoers can be receptive. And the same goes for 'The Years' — I wasn't quite as enthused by it as some other critics, but turning a sociological memoir into watchable theater is no mean feat. Eline Arbo imbued it with a sense of movement and vitality, so I can understand why she won best director.
WOLF Both shows were expected to win their key categories — best new musical for 'Benjamin Button' and best new play for 'Giant' — and did. Both are decidedly British, as well as strikingly original, which is interesting given the Oliviers' history of often crowning American work, especially when it comes to best new musical: 'Hamilton' and 'Dear Evan Hansen' both won that category.
Remarkably, this year Romola Garai was nominated twice for best supporting actress, for her performances in 'The Years' and 'Giant.' She won for 'The Years.' What makes Garai stand out onstage?
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
31 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Wordle hints today for #1,453: Clues and answer for Wednesday, June 11
Hey, there! We've reached the midway point of the week and summer Friday (at least for those of us north of the Equator) is edging closer. In the meantime, we're got some games of Wordle to conquer to keep our streaks going. Here's our daily Wordle guide with some hints and the answer for Wednesday's puzzle (#1,453). It may be that you're a Wordle newcomer and you're not completely sure how to play the game. We're here to help with that too. Wordle is a deceptively simple daily word game that first emerged in 2021. The gist is that there is one five-letter word to deduce every day by process of elimination. The daily word is the same for everyone. Wordle blew up in popularity in late 2021 after creator Josh Wardle made it easy for players to share an emoji-based grid with their friends and followers that detailed how they fared each day. The game's success spurred dozens of clones across a swathe of categories and formats. The New York Times purchased Wordle in early 2022 for an undisclosed sum. The publication said that players collectively played Wordle 5.3 billion times in 2024. So, it's little surprise that Wordle is one of the best online games and puzzles you can play daily. To start playing Wordle, you simply need to enter one five-letter word. The game will tell you how close you are to that day's secret word by highlighting letters that are in the correct position in green. Letters that appear in the word but aren't in the right spot will be highlighted in yellow. If you guess any letters that are not in the secret word, the game will gray those out on the virtual keyboard. However, you can still use those letters in subsequent guesses. You'll only have six guesses to find each day's word, though you still can use grayed-out letters to help narrow things down. It's also worth remembering that letters can appear in the secret word more than once. Wordle is free to play on the NYT's website and apps, as well as on Meta Quest headsets and Discord. The game refreshes at midnight local time. If you log into a New York Times account, you can track your stats, including the all-important win streak. If you have a NYT subscription that includes full access to the publication's games, you don't have to stop after a single round of Wordle. You'll have access to an archive of more than 1,400 previous Wordle games. So if you're a relative newcomer, you'll be able to go back and catch up on previous editions. In addition, paid NYT Games members have access to a tool called the Wordle Bot. This can tell you how well you performed at each day's game. Before today's Wordle hints, here are the answers to recent puzzles that you may have missed: Yesterday's Wordle answer for Tuesday, June 10 — TAFFY Monday, June 9 — BOARD Sunday, June 8 — LEASE Saturday, June 7 — REUSE Friday, June 6 — EDIFY Every day, we'll try to make Wordle a little easier for you. First, we'll offer a hint that describes the meaning of the word or how it might be used in a phrase or sentence. We'll also tell you if there are any double (or even triple) letters in the word. In case you still haven't quite figured it out by that point, we'll then provide the first letter of the word. Those who are still stumped after that can continue on to find out the answer for today's Wordle. This should go without saying, but make sure to scroll slowly. Spoilers are ahead. Here is a hint for today's Wordle answer: A type of checkered cloth that many shirts and skirts are made from. There are no repeated letters in today's Wordle answer. The first letter of today's Wordle answer is P. This is your final warning before we reveal today's Wordle answer. No take-backs. Don't blame us if you happen to scroll too far and accidentally spoil the game for yourself. What is today's Wordle? Today's Wordle answer is... PLAID Not to worry if you didn't figure out today's Wordle word. If you made it this far down the page, hopefully you at least kept your streak going. And, hey: there's always another game tomorrow.
Chicago Tribune
44 minutes ago
- Chicago Tribune
‘Patience' review: A detective show that takes autism seriously
A police detective in Yorkshire teams up with an autistic woman working in the records department in the British series 'Patience' on PBS. Patience Evans is content to be squirreled away, working alone amid all those file folders, but when Detective Inspector Bea Metcalf requests some information, Patience slips in another file that, at first glance, seems unrelated. But there are shared patterns between the two cases. Detective Bea (as Patience calls her) is intrigued and compels the young woman to leave the comfort of her solitary workspace to come out into the field and help her solve crimes. This new experience is at turns thrilling, distressing and overwhelming for Patience, depending on the moment. When she pushes through the discomfort, it's because she has a genuine curiosity and is a puzzle-solver by nature. And she . She's emotionally invested. Actor Ella Maisy Purvis is neurodivergent herself and I like that the show (adapted from the French-Belgian series 'Astrid et Raphaëlle') neither infantilizes the character nor treats her as a brilliant but robotic savant who cracks a case by simply scanning a room. She doesn't solve the crimes so much as identify important clues, patterns and other details overlooked by everyone else that help Detective Bea (Laura Fraser) piece together the bigger picture. Their pairing is awkward and tentative and involves a learning curve for both. Bea can be dismissive and sometimes terse, though she gradually becomes more thoughtful in her approach. For Patience, a sharp word or any deviation from her routine can be devastating and discombobulating. Sometimes she's willing to stray from her usual schedule, but she needs a minute to come around to the idea and it's on Bae to slow down, take a beat, and let Patience decide either way. 'Fancy a trip to the mortuary?' Bea asks one day when a new case is dropped in her lap. Patience pauses, wrapping her head around this unexpected change in plans, but then a small smile reaches her lips. 'Yes,' she says firmly. Bea and Patience carry the show, while the rest of the ensemble is just sort of there, not really adding much, aside from Bea's obnoxious and bigoted subordinate (played by Nathan Welsh) who is dismissive and sneering about Patience, both to her face and behind her back. I get the idea behind the character; sometimes you need a foil. But the guy has no redeeming qualities (until he suddenly comes around at the end) and I'm not sure what we're meant to think when Bea, as his boss, just smiles wanly instead of putting him in his place. The cases themselves are interesting enough and sometimes pivot around an amusing premise. When a best-selling crime novelist is found dead in his home, the police note that his door had been bolted from the inside and there are no other obvious signs of a break-in and Patience excitedly points out that it's a classic locked-room mystery! 'I just worry whether she can adapt,' a colleague tells Bea patronizingly, and she counters: Don't we have to ask ourselves the same thing? It's a process of figuring out one another's needs and processes and negotiating a way to work together that is respectful of Patience, but also effective at unraveling what happened. Bea and Patience both wear their nails cut short, with perpetually chipped nail polish, and it's a small detail but the kind of visual cue that subtly suggests a common bond, despite their differing temperaments. Less effective are the numerous flashbacks to Patience's childhood. I wish detective shows would abandon this trope forever, it's a time-filler that adds nothing. It wouldn't be accurate to say this is a new spin on the genre, since so many crime solvers — from Sherlock Holmes to Adrian Monk to Professor T — bear traits that could place them on the autism spectrum. But it is a series that aims to capture a less cliched, more multi-dimensional portrayal of autism that also includes a flirtation with a co-worker. An actual romantic subplot! 'I don't think we've ever had a TV show or film that's authentic and actually shows what it's like day to day in a workplace being neurodivergent,' Purvis has said in interviews, making an argument for more autistic actors and writers to be involved in these kinds of stories: 'The kind of perspective that comes from lived experiences can't be learnt, and so when you're casting for roles which have neurodiversity as part of their character it's really important that those voices are being heard and are actively in the room.' 'Patience' — 3 stars (out of 4) Where to watch: 7 p.m Sundays on PBS
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Wordle hints today for #1,454: Clues and answer for Thursday, June 12
Hey, there! Today is both National Peanut Butter Cookie Day and National Jerky Day, so whether you prefer sweet or savory snacks, it's perhaps an excuse to have a little treat. One other thing you might treat yourself to is seeing your Wordle streak tick one number higher. To help make sure that happens, here's our daily Wordle guide with some hints and the answer for Thursday's puzzle (#1,454). It may be that you're a Wordle newcomer and you're not completely sure how to play the game. We're here to help with that too. Wordle is a deceptively simple daily word game that first emerged in 2021. The gist is that there is one five-letter word to deduce every day by process of elimination. The daily word is the same for everyone. Wordle blew up in popularity in late 2021 after creator Josh Wardle made it easy for players to share an emoji-based grid with their friends and followers that detailed how they fared each day. The game's success spurred dozens of clones across a swathe of categories and formats. The New York Times purchased Wordle in early 2022 for an undisclosed sum. The publication said that players collectively played Wordle 5.3 billion times in 2024. So, it's little surprise that Wordle is one of the best online games and puzzles you can play daily. To start playing Wordle, you simply need to enter one five-letter word. The game will tell you how close you are to that day's secret word by highlighting letters that are in the correct position in green. Letters that appear in the word but aren't in the right spot will be highlighted in yellow. If you guess any letters that are not in the secret word, the game will gray those out on the virtual keyboard. However, you can still use those letters in subsequent guesses. You'll only have six guesses to find each day's word, though you still can use grayed-out letters to help narrow things down. It's also worth remembering that letters can appear in the secret word more than once. Wordle is free to play on the NYT's website and apps, as well as on Meta Quest headsets and Discord. The game refreshes at midnight local time. If you log into a New York Times account, you can track your stats, including the all-important win streak. If you have a NYT subscription that includes full access to the publication's games, you don't have to stop after a single round of Wordle. You'll have access to an archive of more than 1,400 previous Wordle games. So if you're a relative newcomer, you'll be able to go back and catch up on previous editions. In addition, paid NYT Games members have access to a tool called the Wordle Bot. This can tell you how well you performed at each day's game. Before today's Wordle hints, here are the answers to recent puzzles that you may have missed: Yesterday's Wordle answer for Wednesday, June 11 — PLAID Tuesday, June 10 — TAFFY Monday, June 9 — BOARD Sunday, June 8 — LEASE Saturday, June 7 — REUSE Every day, we'll try to make Wordle a little easier for you. First, we'll offer a hint that describes the meaning of the word or how it might be used in a phrase or sentence. We'll also tell you if there are any double (or even triple) letters in the word. In case you still haven't quite figured it out by that point, we'll then provide the first letter of the word. Those who are still stumped after that can continue on to find out the answer for today's Wordle. This should go without saying, but make sure to scroll slowly. Spoilers are ahead. Here is a hint for today's Wordle answer: A female fox and one of Santa's reindeer. There are no repeated letters in today's Wordle answer. The first letter of today's Wordle answer is V. This is your final warning before we reveal today's Wordle answer. No take-backs. Don't blame us if you happen to scroll too far and accidentally spoil the game for yourself. What is today's Wordle? Today's Wordle answer is... VIXEN Not to worry if you didn't figure out today's Wordle word. If you made it this far down the page, hopefully you at least kept your streak going. And, hey: there's always another game tomorrow.
