Eddie Redmayne and Jessie Buckley’s ‘Cabaret’ Rules 2022 Olivier Awards

Eddie Redmayne and Jessie Buckley have won best actor and best actress in a musical at the 2022 Olivier Awards in London for their roles as the Emcee and Sally Bowles in the West End revival of Cabaret.

This freshest reinvention of the 1966 Kander & Ebb classic also won best musical revival, while Rebecca Frecknall scooped the Sir Peter Hall award for best director. Redmayne accepted his award on stage and spoke about his “confidence crisis” during rehearsals. He then acknowledged how the show had fuelled his passion, noting that “this was the dream, it is the one,” as well as the role he played as a child at school. His beguiling, contorted interpretation of the Emcee served as a perfect foil to Buckley’s mesmerizing, emotionally raw Sally in the immersive show that puts the audience at the heart of the Kit Kat Klub in 1929 Berlin.

Cabaret‘s Liza Sadovy and Elliot Levey won best actress and best actor in a supporting role for playing Fraulein Schneider and Herr Schultz respectively. Levey accepted his trophy and took aim at the British government’s visa system for Ukrainian refugees. This system has been much in question in recent weeks. The audience stood earlier in the ceremony in support of the Ukrainian people, and was treated to a performance of the Ukrainian national song by Lesley Manville.

The ceremony was held at London’s Royal Albert Hall and featured musical acts from Cabaret ( featuring Amy Lennox, who has continued the role after Buckley left Frost The Drifter’s Girls Moulin Rouge! The Musical, Back to the Future: The Musical Anything Goes, Stand Up! The Bob Marley Musical, and Spring awakening were performed. There was also an performance from play The Life of Pi that featured elaborate puppetry.

This theatrical adaptation of The Life of Pi won five awards. They were won by seven actors — Fred Davis and Daisy Franks, Romina Hytten and Tom Larkin — who play ‘Richard Parker,’ the puppet tiger. Back to the Future: The Musical was named best new musical, and best actress went to Sheila Atim for Constellations. Liz Carr won best actress in a supporting part for The Ordinary Heart .. Carr gave an impassioned speech calling for equal rights for disabled actors, saying on stage that she was the first actor with a disability to play the role of Dr. Emma Brookner (a U.S. physician who was among the first to recognize the 1980s AIDs epidemic), who herself used a wheelchair.

The Olivier Awards were hosted and hosted by Jason Manford, a British comedian and actor. His opening monologue was a reference to the recent Will Smith slapping-Chris Rock incident at Academy Awards. Manford said, “I’m comedian,” shortly after stepping out on stage. “And all your hair looks beautiful and I will very much keep your wives names out my mouth this evening.” This is not an evening of face-slapping , but backslapping

Guests presenters included Keala, Hannah Waddingham and Kit Harrington. Fiona Shaw, Anne-Marie Duff and Noma Dumezweni were also present. Stephen Sondheim was remembered in a performance that closed the ceremony and paid tribute to those who’ve kept theaters running during a continued testing time of the Covid-19 pandemic; Maria Friedman welcomed the swings and understudies from shows that performed on the night, along with performing arts students, for a rendition of Sondheim’s Our Time from Merrily We Roll Along.

Best revival went to Constellations, which featured four casts in rotation, among them: Chris O’Dowd, Peter Capaldi and It’s A Sin‘s Omari Douglas. Pride And Prejudice(*Sort Of), won the Noel Coward/Geoffrey Johnson award for best entertainment or comedy play, Revisor was named best new dance production, and Arielle Smith won outstanding achievement in dance for her choreography of Jolly Folly in Reunion by English National Ballet at Sadler’s Wells. Wolf Witch Giant Fairy was named best family production, while Tim Hatley won best design and Nick Barnes and Finn Caldwell were awarded puppets for Life of Pi ,. Catherine Zuber also won the Olivier for best costume design in Moulin Rouge. The Musical .

The prize for outstanding achievement in Affiliate Theatre went to Old Bridge at Bush Theatre, Jenufa won the best new opera production, and the outstanding achievement in opera was awarded to Peter Whelan and the Irish Baroque Orchestra for Bajazet. Tim Lutkin and Andrzej Goulding took the prize for best lighting design for Life of Pi, and Nick Lidster collected best sound design for Cabaret. Best original score or new orchestrations went to orchestrator Simon Hale for Get Up, Stand Up! The Bob Marley Musical , was won by Kathleen Marshall, who was also the winner of best theatre choreographer for Anything Goes.

This article originally appeared on The Hollywood Reporter.