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    The Snubs and Surprises of the 2025 Olivier Awards

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    Times critics discuss the big winners — a new play about Roald Dahl, a “Fiddler on the Roof” revival and a folk-rock “Benjamin Button”— at London’s theater 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?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.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. More

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      in Theater

      Oliver Awards 2025 Nominations: ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ Earns 13 Nods

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      The acclaimed revival, which is about to transfer to London’s Barbican, scored 13 nominations at Britain’s equivalent of the Tonys.A revival of “Fiddler on the Roof,” the much-loved 1964 musical, received the most nominations on Tuesday for this year’s Olivier Awards, Britain’s equivalent of the Tonys.The show got 13 nods — seven more than any other musical or play — including best musical revival, where it is up against a production of “Hello, Dolly!” starring Imelda Staunton, which ran at the London Palladium, as well as ongoing revivals of “Oliver!” at the Gielgud Theater and “Starlight Express” at the Troubadour Wembley Park Theater.Directed by Jordan Fein, “Fiddler on the Roof” is a stripped-back version of the tale of a Jewish milkman in Czarist Russia who is marrying off his daughters against a backdrop of antisemitic pogroms. It received rave reviews when it opened last August at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theater. (It transfers to the Barbican Center on May 24).Marianka Swain, writing in The Daily Telegraph, called the production “a masterclass in balancing innovation with tradition.” Fein resisted the temptation to draw out the musical’s parallels to contemporary events like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or surging antisemitism, Swain wrote. “No need when they come through so powerfully anyway,” the reviewer added.Fein is nominated in the best director category, where he will face tight competition from the directors of three of the past year’s most critically acclaimed plays: Nicholas Hytner for “Giant,” about Roald Dahl’s antisemitism, staged last year at the Royal Court and opening in April on the West End; Robert Icke for a version of “Oedipus” that ran at Wyndham’s Theater; and Eline Arbo for “The Years,” running at the Harold Pinter Theater.From left, Anjli Mohindra, Deborah Findlay, Gina McKee, Romola Garai and Harmony Rose-Bremner in “The Years.”Helen MurrayWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.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. More

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      in Television

      Review: ‘Dune: Prophecy’ Is Still Looking for Its Voice

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      A long-gestating prequel, about the women who seek to guide a galaxy, is splashy, somber and insufficiently spicy.“Dune,” the multi-novel, multi-movie saga, is in part about the battle for a precious commodity hoovered up from a desert planet to enrich the rapacious nobility. It’s called spice.“Dune: Prophecy,” the six-episode prequel series beginning Sunday on HBO, also concerns a valuable resource hoarded by empires and processed through machinery. It’s called intellectual property.Spice is a dangerous substance, controlled through violence, but at least the universe gets something out of it. Its mind-expanding properties make hyperspace travel possible and can induce prescience in the user.I.P., on the other hand, tends to simply give us lavish, lesser copies of things we already have. “House of the Dragon” is “Game of Thrones: Blonder and Blander”; “The Rings of Power” substitutes the mystic wonder of “The Lord of the Rings” with C.G.I. and metalsmithing.“Dune: Prophecy” is set 10,000 years before Timothée and Zendaya strode the sands. Its action unfolds shortly after an uprising against “thinking machines” that enslaved humanity. But the series itself is securely in the control of the I.P. machine.Its focus is the Sisterhood, the precursor to the Bene Gesserit of the films, now overseen by the ruthless and subtle-minded Mother Superior Valya Harkonnen (Emily Watson). A combination of deep-state apparatus and deadly yoga colony, this secretive society of female mentalists provides “truthsayers” (human lie detectors) to the ruling nobles while guiding history with a genetics program designed to breed ideal rulers. (Humankind may have faster-than-light spaceships, but the galaxy remains a patriarchy that women can influence only by stealth.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.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. More

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      in Movies

      ‘Nocebo’ Review: A Troubled Home and a Sick Mother

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      A new horror starring Eva Green has a point to make about economic exploitation but lacks a sense of surprise.Child care is treacherous work in horror movies. Babysitters are invariably stalked, like in “Halloween,” and in “The Omen, looking after Damien leads his nanny to hang herself. This trope is toyed with in “Nocebo,” a new prestige horror about a stressed-out, affluent couple, Christine (Eva Green) and Felix (Mark Strong). They take on help for their young daughter (Billie Gadsdon), who, in the first sign something is terribly awry, attends a school where the uniform includes a beret.The new nanny (Chai Fonacier), who is Filipino, enters a troubled home and immediately starts handling the family’s problems and concerns, from making dinner to treating the mysterious sickness afflicting Christine using folk healing learned in her homeland. After a telephone call delivering bad news, Christine, a children’s fashion designer, starts feeling extremely off (symptoms include perspiration and seeing scary dogs). Her husband is skeptical.This movie has plenty going for it: excellent actors (Fonacier has a knack for coiled tension), stylish camerawork by the director Lorcan Finnegan and a point to make about economic exploitation. What’s missing is any sense of surprise. The plot unfolds as straightforwardly as a perfectly fine essay for an academic journal. Every twist is telegraphed. And the scenes are so overt and schematic that they prevent the actors from adding much mess or weirdness. The closest we get is Strong’s ability to imbue his flustered dad with an absurd amount of gravitas. Even in a movie haunted by death, you need more signs of life.NoceboNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. In theaters. More