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who was snubbed by the OLIVIER AWARDS? | the West End shows and actors who weren't nominated in 2026
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Mickey Jo
now there will come a point in this conversation, and it happens every year, when I have said the word snubs so many times that it ceases to sound like a real word and begins simply to sound like a strange noise upon which I am insisting. And so as to remove the anxious uncertainty of that exact moment, we're just gonna fast forward to it right now. Snubs, snub, snub, snub, snub, snub, snub. Already gone weird. Already weird. It's reminded Me of the Snubbies. Does anyone else remember Snubbies? The little plastic dogs that had their own theme tune? Me and all the Snubbies. As cute as can be. Anyway, I've immediately become sidetracked. Let's talk about the shows, the actors and the creatives who were not nominated for this year's Olivier Awards, AKA the British Tony Awards. But first, an introduction to me. Especially for those of you who may be meeting me for the very first time. Oh, my God. Hey. Welcome to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to those of you listening to this on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I'm obsessed with all things theatre. I'm a critic, a content creator and a pundit here on social media. And today we'll once more go to be discussing the 2026 Laurence Olivier Awards, celebrating the best of the last year of major London theatre. Now, this year's nominations were announced last week. I reacted to them live. There has been considerable discussion about them ever since within the theatre community. The awards themselves are going to take place in April. I will again be attending this year's ceremony. Can't wait. Looking forward to it. No idea what I'm going to be wearing. My what's On Stage Awards suit was snazzy this year and I will be damned if I'm not going to exceed myself. As always, a little ahead of this year's ceremony, my stager fiance, Erin James and I will be sitting share our predictions and aspirations for this year's Olivier Awards. Who do we think will win and who do we think should? But before we get to that, I would like to continue to reflect on the nominations that have been announced and the individuals and shows that were not recognized this year, AKA who got snubbed. Now, in previous years when I have put together these lists, I have experienced some criticism for potentially just sharing a whole bunch of individuals who were eligible but who weren't necessarily snubbed. And it's a tenuous definition. It's also a very subjective concept because the people who I think were snubbed are unlikely to be the same people who you think were snubbed. I'm trying to base this around the general consensus, so bringing together my own thoughts as well as a lot of the commentary that I have seen, as well as examining some of the surprises based on the patterns of nominations, AKA this show got a lot of nominations but were excluded from this category. Is that a little surprising? Inevitably, of course, nominations for awards which are not the most important thing, are also finite. So we can't recognize absolutely everybody. And just to be clear, the intention of this video is not to shame those individuals who weren't nominated this year, but to in fact uplift their work and remind everyone that they were also brilliant and deserving of recognition. Because some of these were shocking and egregious. And it's always a good day when I can use that word in a sentence. So, with little further long windedness, let me share with you which performances and shows I believe were snubbed this year. Of course you are likely to have your own opinions about this. Feel free to share them in the comments. And if you want to stay up to date with all of the Olivier Awards coverage, as well as the subsequent Tony Awards coverage later this year, make sure you're subscribed here on YouTube or following me on podcast platforms. That is it. That's the intro. Let's get to the snubs. Snubs, snub, snub, snub, snub, snubs everybody. So let's rip off the proverbial band aid here and start talking about actors and performances in plays and musicals, starting with leading performances in plays. In Best Actor we had Bryan Cranston, Shaun Hayes, Tom Hiddleston, Jack Holden and David Shields. Very competitive category. Brilliant performances, all of them in leading actress. Meanwhile, Julia McDermott, Rosamund Pike, Cate Blanchett, Marianne, Jean Baptiste and Rosie Sheehy. Again, very talented. Fantastic performances. However, there were some surprises and while it was fantastic to see both of the stars of All My Sons nominated, it was a surprise that only Rosie Sheehy was nominated for Guess How Much I Love youe and not rising star Robert Aramayo. Now, he was just a winner at the BAFTAs. He is doing very well. He is going to be a huge success, I think, regardless. But anyone who had the chance to see that emotionally intense play will know that it was a real honest, raw collaboration between the two of them. On the other hand, we had Tom Hiddleston nominated for Much Ado About Nothing, but not his opposite number in Hayley Atwell. I thought the two of them were each as brilliant as each other and so it was a shame not to see even nominations here. Of course, Tom Hiddleston was very lucky that his performance was remembered from the very beginning of the season. Only days into the beginning of eligibility, around 12 months ago was the opening night for Much Ado About Nothing. The same week was the opening night for Jonathan Bailey in Richard ii. Even though he is also a celebrity name, he was not nominated this year and there is something of a wicked connection because one of the final opening nights of the season was Dracula starring Cynthia Erivo. In spite of all of the discourse, in spite of the objective praise for her performance in the admittedly mixed reviews, and in spite of all of the characters she plays on stage, she was not nominated, which I will characterize as a snob, if only because Sarah Snook was nominated for and won the Olivier for a similar solo performance in the Picture of Dorian Gray. Now there are a few more leading performances. I didn't see Brendan Gleeson in the Weir, but I think there was an expectation that he and that production were going to get nominated. However, zero nominations. Similarly, nothing for Woman in Mind, the Alan Aykborne revival starring Sheridan Smith, who has previously been a darling of the Oliviers. The most egregious to my mind, however, this was the biggest omission from leading performances in plays was Mason Alexander park as O Mary. There has been some speculation that this is because the Oliviers still insist needlessly on binary acting categories. For the individuals who are about to type an essay length response to me in the comments about why we need binary acting categories, we don't. You can split it by new and revival, which makes more sense regardless. In any case, there are other non binary performers who have been nominated this year as well as in previous years, they are just expected, somewhat uncomfortably, to opt into one of the two gendered categories, perhaps based on the role that they are portraying rather than their own personal identification. As such, we might have expected to see a nomination for Mason Alexander park in Best Leading Actress in a play for playing the role of Mary Todd Lincoln, a role which won Cora Scola the Tony Award and a role which Mason portrays gloriously. It's a fabulous performance. It's a real shame not to see it recognized, especially because Mason's O Mary co star Giles Torreira was nominated in the category of Best Featured Actor in a Play alongside Hamed Animation, Papa Esyedou and Zachary Hart, twice both for the Seagull and for Stereophonic. And while I don't think there were necessarily abundance of great support supporting roles for actors in the last season, there were certainly a lot of other fantastic performances in Stereophonic, perhaps most notably Eli Gelb. That is a play whose cast members were more recognized at the Tony Awards on Broadway than they were here in the West End once it transferred. I will also add to this that I was half expecting to see nominations for Ramesh Ranganathan in the snubbed production of Alan Akbourn's Woman in Mind that I mentioned. It's actually a very brilliant debut from him, and nominations for performers like Lily Allen before have seen that the Oliviers do like to be inclusive of new talents coming into the theatre. That is the most diplomatic way that I could possibly phrase that. Meanwhile, a rising talent who I thought could have been recognized in this moment was Jasper Talbot, not necessarily for his leading performance in the Line of Beauty, but for his featured performance in the very buzzy and multi nominated inter Alia, with featured actresses in place. Meanwhile, we saw nominations for Isis Hainsworth, the only company member nominated from Arcadia, interestingly enough, as well as Lucy Karchevsky from Stereophonic. Sadly, no nomination for her co star Nia Tal, who I thought was also just Hayley Squires. Also nominated Sophie Thompson and Julie Hesmondhalg for Punch. One conspicuous omission throughout the acting categories has been the play 1536, which is nominated for Best New Play for Best Director. However, none of its ensemble cast have been individually recognized. I have not yet seen 1536 to know what the distribution of material is like between these roles, but for similar ensemble casts, I'm thinking of the years. Last year, also at the Almeida, we did see some nominations, so it's surprising for such a buzzy play to have no act nominations at all. I also want to give a shout out to the supporting performance of Vinette Robinson in a production of Othello at Theatre Royal Haymarket, another one which was entirely snubbed with no nominations whatsoever. But now let's move on to the musical nominees, which by and large I thought were pretty reflective of this season's finest performances. However, there were some conspicuous and bizarre omissions, the first of which was in Best Leading Actor in a Musical. We, of course saw nominations for the dual performers bringing Paddington Bear to life on stage, James Hamid and Artie Shah, as well as the leading men from three of this season's musical revivals. The two producers from the Producers, Andy Nyman and Mark Antolin, Jamie Parker from Into the woods and Diego Andres Rodriguez from Evita. And yet the person who I thought could actually most closely rival Paddington Bear for the win here hasn't made it into the category at all. This was an outrageous snub for Mark in the unlikely pilgrimage of Harold Fryn. Now, his admittedly in the realm of musical theatre is not an all singing, all dancing performance when compared with some of the others, but it's a beautifully heartfelt acting performance that I think was astonishingly overlooked. One name that also Kept appearing in the comments section of my live reaction to the Oliviers was also Jamie Moscato for the Great Gatsby. And admittedly Jeremy Jordan was not nominated for originating that role on Broadway. But Corbin Blue was nominated for his supporting performance and people said, you know, it was surprising that he was and Jamie wasn't. They weren't competing to get into the same category. Jamie was leading, Corbin was supporting. So, you know, they had different competition. They were running entirely separate races at the Theatrical Olympics. And since we've started on that category, let's continue with featured actors in a musical. As well as Corbin Bleu for the Great Gatsby, there was also Trevor Ashley for the Producers. Sadly, no. Harry Morrison for his role as Franz Liebkind. And historically with the Producers, I think it's always going to go to the Roger Debris, the way that the show ends, it's such an opportunity for see Stealing Campy Gloriousness. If you do a great job with Roger Debris, that's always going to be the featured nomination. Similarly, another often nominated role is Cinderella's Prince Slash the Wolf from into the Woods. Oliver Savile received a nomination alongside Joe Foster, nominated for playing Jack. Joe Foster has been deserving of an Olivier nomination for some time now, so this is very overdue and I'm very happy about it. The category is completed by Paddington's Tom Eddam, but who else was I expecting to see? Well, I was really rooting for Keith Ramsey from Shucked, and when you think back to Shucked, I think a lot of my fondest memories of seeing that production at Regent's park were the cacophonous laughs from the audience at these hilarious one liners delivered by the character of Peanut, played brilliantly by Keith Ramsey. It has been interesting seeing into the woods having a lot more momentum with nominations than Evita. At one point I was wondering whether the Evita hype would earn it. Many more nominations for James Olivas, potentially for Bella Brown in Best Featured Actress in Musical. And while we did see a couple of actresses nominated for Here We Are at the National Theatre, I was surprised that Harry Haddon Payton wasn't. But let's talk about those actresses, shall we? Starting with the leading actresses in a musical, which included Rachel Zegler playing the role of Eva Peron in Evita. Jenna Russell for the unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, the only member of that company to be nominated for an acting performance. There was also Jane Krakowski, one of the company members from Here We Are. Katy Braben, one of the many nominated performers from into the woods nominated for her performance as the Baker's Wife and the two job sharing stars of Brigadoon, Georgina Honora and Danielle Fiaman, rising stars the both of them and that joint nomination allowed six brilliant actresses to be recognized in this category, which is very exciting and yet demanding individual that I am. I would love for us to have found space for a couple more because I would contend that Amy Ellen Richardson really is the beating heart of Paddington the Musical. I think hers is just about considered a leading performance, especially if we're calling the Baker's Wife and Into the World Woods a leading performance. Then so is Mrs. Brown in Paddington, especially with that song she has in the first act. The other two I want to talk about are both very exciting rising stars from shows that were perhaps unsurprisingly, completely snubbed. I don't know that we expected to see nominations for these shows, honestly, but I think these two were deserving of recognition. I am talking about Jess Foley from Burlesque and Emma Flynn from Clueless. Now Jess is currently belting at the Barricades in Les Mis. Emma is flying over Broadway in a Glinda Bubble in Wicked at the Gershwin Theatre. So it's difficult to be sad for either of them. But regardless, they were great. Our final acting category then, Best Featured Actress in a Musical. We had two from Paddington, Amy Booth Steele and Victoria Hamilton Barrett. We had Tracy Bennett from Here We Are. Georgina Honora got a second nomination for her role as Lulu in Shucked. And finally Kate Fleetwood got a nomination for playing the witch in into the Woods, a role which has almost exclusively been considered leading before, including by the Olivier Awards. Very interesting that, and it is possibly the reason why a couple of the other performers from into the woods weren't able to break into this category because you can't really compete with material like that of the witch. I'm thinking specifically of Misa Dawnford May as Cinderella and Gracie McGonagall as Little Red Riding Hood. Also Bella Brown for Rapunzel, although I think if she was going to get a nomination it probably would have been for Evita. Not just for her role as the mistress, but also with recognition of the fact that she was the ultimate at Ava and went on for a couple of balcony inclusive performances. Another name that was appearing in the comments was Amber Davis for the Great Gatsby and she did just win the what's On Stage award. So there has been recognition. I would also put to you that Rachel Tucker did a great job with her material in that show and There was also eligible this year a West End legend who bafflingly has yet to receive an Olivier nomination. Not just no award, no nomination yet. I am talking about the one, the only, Bonnie Langford. And she is show stopping in Paddington the Musical, as are many other performers, including the two in this category. And you know there was always going to be a fight between the featured actresses in that show. We said that from first preview that there were never going to be enough spots for how many great roles there were, for how many great cast members there were. But Bonnie is sensational and it is sort of shocking that she still has no Olivier recognition. That being said, however, it is time for me to stop talking about performers and talk a little bit more about the shows and the
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- [18:24]
Mickey Jo
themselves. So let's start with Best New Musical. We had four nominees. I think I was pretty happy with these nominations. I think these were probably the best four musicals of the year. They were shucked at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre. Here we are at the national as well as the unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and of course, Paddington the Musical. If a Fifth had managed to make it into this category. I would have liked for it to have been Sing street at the Lyric Hammersmith. I think that deserved some recognition somewhere. But based on how the rest of the nominations went, it very possibly could have been the Great Gatsby at the London Coliseum. I don't think that the likes of Clueless or Hercules or Burlesque were ever really going it in here. Nor, if I'm being honest, necessarily deserved to. When it comes to new plays, though, there were multiple that didn't get recognized. And that's because the quality of new playwriting this year was once again top tier. We had 1536 by Eva Pickett, inter alia, by Susie Miller, Kenrex by Jack Holden and Punch by James Graham. I was very disappointed not to see Stereophonic, of course, by David Ajmee in here as well. Stereophonic did earn creative nominations and performer nominations, but, you know, as a Tony winning Best New Play for it, not to get nominated at the Oliviers is sort of shocking. There's a history of this for productions like Slave Play that are very well nominated and awarded in America, come over here and don't get the same level of recognition. It also happens to Pulitzer Prize winners fairly often. That's the one that I really think ought to have been in this category. It is admittedly surprising not to have seen Guess how much I love you in there as well. And I know a lot of people wanted to see a nomination for the film Fifth Step, carrying on to the world of play revivals. It isn't often we see so many outstanding productions in this category. Actually, this one was really stacked. Much Ado About Nothing at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, the new version of the Seagull at the Barbican, All My Sons directed by Eva Van Hove at the Wyndhams, as well as a new production of Arcadia at the Old Vic. All of them hot tickets and probably again the four that ought to have been nominated. I didn't see the Weir, but people did expect for it to get nominations. I'm also not entirely sure where Their Intimate Apparel would have been recognized, but it was so talked about at the time. It's another one that foolishly I missed at the Donmar Warehouse, and I think it was technically the UK premiere production, but the play has existed for a long time, so, you know, the Oliviers have fuzzy rules, unlike the Tony Awards when it comes to things like this. We should also point out that Richard II did just win at the Watson Stage Awards in spite of not being nominated for any Olivier Awards, including for Best revival of a Play. And in the world of musical revivals, while Evita, the Producers, into the Woods, American Psycho were nominated. The most conspicuous omission here was probably Brigadoon, based on the fact that it received other nominations, including for its choreography and for its leading performance. There was another one, though, which I believe was technically eligible. I don't know if they necessarily went to the trouble of like formally submitting themselves and inviting nominators and all that jazz, but Top Hat, currently touring around the UK after a new production opened at Chichester Festival Theatre, technically did. Did a sit down run over the festive period at the South bank center and would have been eligible based on that run. A shame then not to see it nominated for Best revival of a musical, but more so for another of its creative categories, which is what we're going to talk about next. Actually, I lie. We have a couple more show categories to get through first. One of them is Best Entertainment or Comedy Play. I can't begin to disagree with any of the nominees here, even if the definition of this category is objectively quite silly, because while Omari and the comedy about spies absolutely are comedy plays that deserve specific recognition, I would argue that Paranormal Activity and Every Brilliant Thing are not. And you know, the fact that Stranger Things went into this category and Harry Potter went into play, it's just. It's all silly anyway. Those were four popular, brilliant shows. I'm not about to argue with their nominations. The one that was quite clearly snubbed here, and I'll let you decide whether it was worthy of recognition or not, was the Hunger Games. And prior to it, beginning previews, we would have expected for there to be Olivier nominations, plural, for the Hunger Games, based on how Cursed Child was received, based on how Stranger Things, the First Shadow was received, both of those did well. It is kind of shocking that we've reached this point with no Olivier recognition at all for the Hunger Games. In the world of family shows, it went Boy Girl, Boy Pig, with the nominated productions being the Boy with Wings, the Firework Maker's Daughter, the Boy at the Back of the Class, and the Three Little Pigs. The Conspicuous Omissions. There were a lovely production of Pinocchio at Shakespeare's Globe, very much geared towards family audiences, as well as Christmas Carol Goes Wrong, which I gather was submitted in this category, possibly with Mischief Theatre hedging their bets a little bit, putting one in comedy, putting the other in family. I don't know whether that necessarily feels a little bit like cheating. Evidently it didn't necessarily all the way work. Finally we get to the category of Best Affiliate Theatre, and there are so many things that could have been nominated here, but I was surprised not to see recognition for production like 448 psychosis at the Royal Court. Aaron was also hoping that Ohio by the Bankstons, which we saw at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and subsequently ran for a limited time at the Young Vic's smaller space, might get nominated. And we both thought that here there are blueberries at Stratford east definitely would. Alas, none of the above. At which point now it's time for us to talk about creatives. Let's talk about those directors, those choreographers and those designers that were not nominee
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- [25:47]
Mickey Jo
Now, I'll preface all of these by saying the thing with these categories is unlike the Tony Awards, the Oliviers group them all together. Plays and musicals share one category for their directors, their lighting designers, their set designers, etc. Which means means half as many productions and individuals are recognized, which is a shame. More often than not, we also see what I perceive anecdotally as a slight bias towards plays, especially in the category of Best Director, which means it is hard for multiple directors of musicals to really break into this category. However, this year two did both. Luke Shepard for directing Paddington and Jordan Fine for directing into the woods with the Missing One there, based on this year's biggest shows, of course, being Jamie Lloyd for his production of Evita. And he had already been elig when it was staged the first time around at Regent's Park. Yes, the show evolved considerably between the two venues, what with the Balcony edition and all. Even so, he was not nominated this year, nor was he nominated for his production of Much Ado About Nothing at Theatre Royal Drury Lane. The other nominees in this category were Ivo Van Hove for All My Sons, Ed Stamboulian for Kenrex and Lindsay Turner for 1536. Now I'm going to continue to wear my stereophonic hat, literally and figuratively when I tell you that Daniel Orkin very much should have been nominated for the master colorful direction of Stereophonic. But my favourite direction, I think of the entire year, other than perhaps evo's on All My Sons, which was extraordinary, may have come from Justin Martin for Inter Alia, Rosamund pike. Wonderful. The play itself, brilliantly written, but my favourite thing about that production was the direction. It was stunning. I will say I am grateful, however, that it is not a category of all male directors this year, which has happened altogether far too too often. Now let's talk about the choreographers, because this was a bloodbath and I realized in the days approaching the nomination announcement that it was going to be a bloodbath because there were so many brilliantly talented, deserving choreographers this year. Fabian Alouise was nominated for Evita. He was not separately nominated alongside that for Much Ado About Nothing. But I do think actually if there had been a fifth nomination, it may have been Fabian. Again, as it stands, his fellow nominees are Lynne Page for American Psycho, great choreography, Ellen Kane for Paddington the Musical, great choreography, and Drew McConi for the gorgeous balletic choreography of Brigadoon at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre. And it's really hard to argue with any of those, particularly the more dance forward productions. The choreography of Evita was its strongest creative aspect. The choreography of Brigadoon was sensational. There were, however, a couple of other high profile choreographers and dance heavy shows that were not nominated. Kathleen Marshall's Extraordinary tap choreography for Top Hat didn't make it in Todrick Hall's choreography for Burlesque. Say what you will about the chaos of that production in the West End, that choreography, I think did deserve a nomination. We could also talk about the viral popular choreography from the Great Gatsby. That's my sat down attempt at doing new money there. As well as the underrated choreography, in my opinion, from the unlikely pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Tom Jackson Greaves. You tell me another musical that is putting Morris dancing on a West End stage. That's culture right there. And now, since we've made it this far, let's fully just drive the car off the edge of the cliff and talk about the nonsense category that is best musical contribution, which I affectionately refer to as the best Good job Making Music Happen on a Stage in some capacity award one which used to nominate the composers and lyricists of musicals alongside people who play instruments on stage, but now no longer does unless you happen to be the composer of music in a play, in which case you can be nominated here. It makes no sense whatsoever, but it's what it is. Famously. Tim Minchin nominated for for his genius work on the Groundhog Day score was beaten in this category, I believe, by the kids from School of Rock for very impressively playing their own instruments on stage. And there's a little bit of that again this year because Sean Hayes, the star of Goodnight Oscar, also nominated for his leading performance, has been nominated for playing Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, I believe, on the stage of the Barbican Theatre alongside Chris Fenwick for arrangement and music supervision. And it's not that I disagree with that. I think Sean Hayes did a beautiful job playing that piano piece and it's quite a creative nomination. I do think that we could just encompass that within his existing performance nomination. It was a part of the performance. If we're going to talk about virtuosic piano playing, I'm going to get annoyed that we didn't give that same credit to Jung Si Yong for your lie in April when that was in the West End, albeit for a limited time. And there are other shows this year when people played instruments on stage which haven't been nominated. The cast of Stereophonic, Even the though the music of the show got a very well deserved nomination. The original score that is composed by Will Butler and orchestrated by Will and Justin Craig. Very glad it got a nomination. But where was the nomination for the cast for playing their instruments and singing? Likewise, there were cast members of Inter Alia who played instruments on Stage, admittedly not to the same extent. And the young cast of Sing street as well. And while I'm also not mad at the again, very well deserved nomination for John Patrick Elliot for Ken Rex, go watch my reaction. I cheered for this. I was very happy. I am a little put out that in a category with four nominations in best musical contribution, three of them are for plays. And I think while we're seeing more and more music inclusive plays and those nominations are very well deserved, it does feel a little unfairly skewed. We only have one musical nominated for its arrangements and orchestrations, the brilliant Matthew Brind for Paddington, but no love for the arrangements and orchestrations of Evita or In the woods or the unlikely pilgrimage of Harold Fry or actually Brigadoon at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre. Those bagpipes at the beginning, I'm just saying, carrying on. Before I get too upset with myself, let's talk about set design. And there are quite a few that I wanted to see nominated here that did not happen. Generally speaking, these nominations were shared between a lot of the shows that were getting a lot of nominations. Paddington was nominated, into the woods was nominated. No surprises there. Very well deserved. I was pleased that Stereophonic was nominated nominated and I was pleasantly surprised that the Great Gatsby was also nominated for their set design which has some of the best incorporation of video screens in a set design I've seen in a long time. The other striking, clever and gorgeous sets I would have liked to see recognized, however, the comedy about spies that had a really complex like Doll's House kind of a set design. Similarly, Paranormal Activity. Haven't seen it on stage, but heard that the set does a lot of very clever things. I also did not see the lady from the Sea at the Bridge Theatre, but the they had a swimming pool on stage. And here are two I did see All My Sons. It was a simpler set, but it was a clever one. And inter alia, that was. I can't even tell you because it's a spoiler alert but the set design for Inter Alia not getting a nomination, that might just be my 13th reason because that was impressive and incredible and full of surprises. Contrastingly, I didn't actually have that many strong opinions in the world of costume design. If you have some costume designers who use you think were snubbed, feel free to shout them out in the comments. I would have liked to have seen nominations for the gorgeous costumes of Brigadoon and the vibrant costumes of O Mary, but I did not begrudge the nominations for into the woods, for Paddington, for the Great Gatsby and for Stereophonic. Finally, then we have sound and lighting design. Let's talk lighting first. Evita, thank goodness, was nominated for their extraordinary lighting design. So was into the woods also fantastic lighting. We also had nominations for plays Punch and Kenrex. Paddington wasn't nominated for its lighting. And in comparison to all of those other shows, the lighting is not as vital or perhaps as forthcoming. It's only really a surprise because this is one of the major categories that Paddington didn't break into. The ones that I think have more expressive use of lighting that could have been seen here were a Mercury, American Psycho, but particularly All My Sons at the Wyndhams. You think about how sound is used in that play, but you really think about how lighting is used. And they make a lot of bold lighting choices. I was surprised that they weren't remembered here. And then finally, the sound designers, without whom the lighting would be the only thing for us to appreciate. And in a category very indicative of the rest of the creative nominations, there was recognition for Stereophonic, for Ken Rex, for Paddington and for Interview the Woods. The one that boggles my mind and I'm glad they got the lighting nom they deserved is Evita. Because to do the video stuff, to have Rachel Zegler perform that song outside and for it to be synchronized with the video on the inside, for us to hear it as clearly as we did in the auditorium, for it to be in sync with the orchestra who were there in front of us while she's outside and we're seeing a video and there's a relay and all of that, this stuff, for that to achieve perfect synchronicity and, and, and for the people on the street to also be included within the sound design. Because when Tom Francis was walking past you on the Strand or on Broadway or whatever, you only heard the man singing to himself. But on Argyll street, when you queued up for hours and stood outside that balcony, they also gave you like some pumped out orchestra, so that you were getting a full version of that sound design in that performance as well. None of the rest of these nominees are thinking about the sound design design outside of the building, other than, I suppose, the shows at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre. That is the hill that I am personally willing to die on. And Aaron was keen that I also mentioned every brilliant thing because they amplified the audience. And once again, I do think that musicals have more to consider and have just generally a tougher job when it comes to sound design, because of the music of it all. Admittedly, I don't begrudge half of this category's nominees being plays when they are music inclusive. Plays like Stereophonic and Kenreck's. And if I'm being honest, generally speaking, I don't have that many complaints about this year's Olivier Award nominations. This is probably one of my more content years, though I am still willing to go to war for Mason, Alexander park, and Mark Addy specifically. Having shared with you all of my thoughts, though, I am very curious as to who you would have liked to have seen nominated this year at the Oliviers who was not. Share with me your biggest disappointments and the most shocking snubs in the comments down below. In the meantime, thank you for listening to my thoughts. Stay tuned for more coming very soon as we approach this year's ceremony, my predictions will be on their way before too long. To make sure you don't miss them, make sure you're subscribed here on YouTube with the notifications turned on or following me on podcast platforms. Until then, I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey day. For 10 more seconds, I'm Mickey Jo Theatre. Oh my God, Hank. Thanks for watching. Have a stagey day. Subscribe
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