Awards season is kicking off, and what better way to ease the stars in than with the Critics’ Circle Film Awards, a prestigious but low-key affair at the May Fair Hotel where there is no paparazzi-filled red carpet or row of social media interviewers. Wicked star Cynthia Erivo was there for a good time, not a long time, arriving just after the ceremony started and bursting into song during her acceptance speech for the Innovation award. When Timothée Chalamet was later crowned actor of the year, he began a heartfelt tribute to Erivo, only to look up and realise she’d already left. “I wrote this sweet thing for Cynthia and she’s gone,” Chalamet said with a sigh. “Anyhow… skip, skip, skip!” Other winners included Jessie Buckley, who received the best actress award, and director Paul Thomas Anderson for One Battle After Another.
Over at the Savoy, thesps Jonathan Pryce and Mark Rylance helped raise more than £300,000 for medics in Gaza at the Health Workers 4 Palestine Gala. Meanwhile in Mayfair, Tilda Swinton was at Mazarine to toast director Joanna Hogg at a (rather premature) 20th anniversary dinner for her first film, Unrelated, which starred a baby-faced 26-year-old Tom Hiddleston. At the Rosewood Hotel, actors Jack Fox, Malachi Kirby and Douglas Booth were digging into a six-course menu at new Japanese restaurant Tobi Masa.
Actor Jacob Elordi donned his best windbreaker, cap and tracksuit bottoms for a Q&A at the Royal Academy about starring as the monster in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein. He told the crowd that he is very much committed to his craft, in spite of the fact that Hollywood is “see-through and vapid, and it can make movies and performances seem like they’re part of this grand capitalist thing.” Writer Yomi Adegoke and two actor Genevieves (Gaunt and Chenneour) went along. Meanwhile, model Mia Regan hosted a charity event with the Tendi Sherpa Foundation, which supports rural communities in Nepal. 2026 will be remembered as the year that zit stickers went high fashion. The Gen Z beloved brand Starface has teamed up with designer Ashley Williams to create limited-edition pimple patches which say “I heart me”. Nothing like a spot of positivity. Model Lily Nova and curator Olive Parker were at the launch party, held at cool kid bookshop Climax in Clerkenwell.
