OLIVIERS 2011: What's The Point Of Theatre Awards?

It's the awards season - well, it must be as it's a Sunday and someone must be getting an award somewhere tonight. Turns out it's The Oliviers' turn, so roll out the red carpet, prepare all those oh so penetrating "How does it feel..." questions and smile, smile, smile!

I guess I'm dissenting again because, like the editor of this site, I love the unscripted drama of sport as much as the scripted drama of theatre. One crucial difference between those two diversions is that sport (most of them and all the ones that really count) divines winners and losers objectively - goals, runs, points, times etc. Theatre, like cinema, television, fashion, whatever, doesn't so we're left with value judgements from faceless juries, ballots cast by unknowable electors and other voting systems that wouldn't stand up to a referendum in May.

Why, for instance, is Rory Kinnear nominated? I enjoyed his Hamlet, but failed to discern its awardworthiness. What are the criteria he satisfied that others did not? Can these criteria be measured and moderated? Can we all have a go? Of course this is nonsense, a banal reduction of artistic endeavour to a scoresheet of tick boxes and one- to five-star ratings.

But isn't that the dirty little secret at the heart of award ceremonies? For all the glitz and the glamour, the frocks and the frolics, the PR and the paybacks, somebody sucked on a thoughtful tooth and somehow identified, from the vast array of potential nominees, five performances for the Best Actor category. Careers are made and broken on such decisions.

I'm just glad we don't identify our surgeons the same way.    

Do you agree with Gary? Or do you think all the theatre awards are a vital part of the industry? Comment below!

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