Heroes, which starred the esteemed trio Richard Griffiths, Ken Stott and John Hurt, has picked up the Best New Comedy award at the Laurence Olivier Awards 2006, presented by comedienne Catherine Tate.
The play was originally written by Gérald Sibleyras, who collected the award, and entitled Le Vent De Peupliers when it opened to much acclaim in Paris a few years ago. This version has been adapted by Oscar and Laurence Olivier-winning playwright Tom Stoppard and follows three army veterans Gustave, Philippe and Henri as they plan to flee from a French military hospital in 1959. Heroes, which ran at Wyndham’s theatre from October 2005 to January 2006, also bagged Best Ensemble Performance at the Theatregoers’ Choice Awards last month.
Happy, surprised and impressed were just a few of the adjectives that Sibleyras used to describe his reaction to the win. "It a was wonderful [project] and it was wonderful to work with Tom Stoppard – I didn’t know Tom before and he really improved the text, we worked together with David [Pugh] and everything went really great, and now this award."
Sibleyras happily told us that he thought Heroes worked much better in English than his original French version: "It was my second play and the way that David Pugh produced it and the way you work in London is much deeper to the text."
In the category of Best New Comedy, Heroes fought off Glorious!, starring the ever-funny Maureen Lipman as a singer who can’t sing, and Shoot The Crow, which was a big hit last year at Trafalgar Studios, and starred James Nesbitt, Conleth Hill, Jim Norton and Packy Lee.
CB
