Host Jason Manford is keen to avoid an Oscars incident as he gets things under way:
I will very much be keeping your wives’ names out of my chuffing mouth … This is an evening of back-slapping not face-slapping.
Cabaret’s Jessie Buckley takes the stage to receive her Olivier award for best actress in a musical:
This is like my worst nightmare and my biggest dream all at once!
Fiona Shaw is taken aback by the huge applause she receives when she arrives to present the opera awards:
Steady on, I’m not going to sing!
Olivier winner Eddie Redmayne remembers a Cabaret rehearsal meltdown:
I was having a complete confidence crisis and one of our wonderful swings, the understudy for Sally Bowles, Emily Benjamin, came up to me … She took my hand and she said: ‘Eddie, look at me, you were cast for a reason.’ I looked at Emily and said: ‘Thanks Ems but I think actually I cast myself.’
Hamilton’s Giles Terera salutes performing arts students and graduates:
We need you now more than ever. People will know what happened in this moment because of the stories that you write … You Lin-Manuels out there, be strong, keep going, tell your truth, change the world.
Presenter Don Black offers some musical wisdom:
No orchestrators are household names but they give many households a lot of pleasure.
Isobel McArthur, playwright of the Olivier-winning Pride and Prejudice* (*Sort Of), remembers its origins at Glasgow’s Tron theatre:
If you are a young artist … I implore you to consider the regions and especially Glasgow – that city will take you in its arms.
Olivier winner Sheila Atim gives a shout out to Omari Douglas who starred in the same run of Constellations as her:
Omari played the same character as me, in a love story opposite Russell Tovey, and I think that’s a really beautiful thing
Simon Hale, who won for Get Up, Stand Up! The Bob Marley Musical, pays tribute to the show’s musicians:
I write music on paper or on the computer. It makes no sound. Without musicians, it has no meaning whatsoever.
