Olivier Awards 2024: Sarah Snook’s chicken and nine other Olivier moments

The musical of a movie star haunted by the memories of her glory Hollywood days, starring Nicole Scherzinger, has swept the board at the Olivier Awards.

Sunset Boulevard picked up seven wins including one for the former Pussycat Dolls star for best actress in her musical.

Sarah Snook and Mark Gatiss were among other actors picking up awards.

Stranger Things: The First Shadow and Operation Mincemeat won awards for best newcomer plays.

The BBC caught up with the stars at the ceremony and here are the ten best moments – including everything from acceptance speeches to jokes to backstage quotes.

At the start of the night we said good luck to Succession star Sarah Snook and she replied, “chookas”.

Confused by what she was talking about, we caught up with her in the winners room to find out its meaning.

“Chookas is the Australian way of saying good luck or break a leg and apparently it’s slang for chicken,” she explained.

“Back in the day if there was a full house at your show, you would be given chickens by the production team to eat afterwards”.

Judging by the almost sold out run of her one-woman production of The Picture Of Dorian Gray and the fact she has picked up the award for best actress, it seems like Snook will be heading home with plenty of chicken for dinner.

Scott told the BBC that he was really proud that his one-man version of Vanya has made it into cinemas after its West End run.

“The geographical reach is great and it’s really important to make sure we aren’t doing stuff that is too London centric,” he said.

The show won the best revival award but Scott missed out on best actor which went to Mark Gatiss.

On the green carpet, Happy Valley star James Norton spoke to us about how challenging his role was in A Little Life.

“It was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life and it was horrible at times,” he said.

The show is a stage adaptation of Hanya Yanagihara’s hugely popular novel of the same name and the relentless trauma featured in the play, which includes scenes of self-harm and sexual abuse, meant it was a difficult role to play.

“Doing 180 shows where I am on stage for four hours and I am diabetic meant it was the most challenging thing but I am grateful I did it,” he added.

Norton was nominated for best actor.

In the words of Hannah Waddingham’s nine-year-old daughter, tonight was all about “slaying” and that is what she did.

Having hosted the awards in 2023, Waddingham was on great form again and treated the audience to a performance of Anything Goes.

She also admitted to feeling “giddy” over seeing Andrew Scott and was fangirling over Nicole Scherzinger (as were we).

The actress also made an impressive three outfit changes during the two hour long ceremony.

It is all about dressing the part at award ceremonies and while plenty of men opted for a classic black suit, David Tennant was not one of them.

Sporting a dark green velvet suit complete with starry sequins he was providing some serious jacket envy – he even asked the BBC team if we were jealous of his outfit (which of course we were).

“David Tennant is looking marvellous in his sparkly outfit and I didn’t get the memo and now I feel a bit boring really,” Joseph Fiennes, who was nominated for best actor alongside Tennant, told the BBC on the green carpet.

The US actress and singer who won the award for best actress in a musical told the BBC in the winners room that she feels like “an honorary Brit”.

“Whenever I come to London it feels like a home away from home and I am always embraced with so much love,” she said.

One of the things the former Pussycat Dolls singer loves the most about the UK is the roast dinner.

Let’s hope she doesn’t miss the roast too much when she takes Sunset Boulevard to Broadway later this year.

In one of the toughest categories this year, Mark Gatiss fought off competition from the likes of Andrew Scott and James Norton to win the award for best actor for his role in The Motive And The Cue.

Gatiss who played John Gielgud told the BBC that his favourite line from the play was when his character is talking about the Tony awards and says: “The whole matter of judging anything… vulgar”.

“The irony of me winning this award for that role is not lost on me,” he said.

The team behind Stranger Things: The First Shadow told the BBC in the winner’s room that they are so excited that they have won because “we always get nominated but never win anything”.

The play, which serves as a prequel to the Netflix series, won the award for best new entertainment or comedy play.

“I really can’t believe it, it is an absolute thrill,” writer Kate Trefry said. So much so that when the award was announced she “dropped an entire glass of wine all over myself”.

Former Strictly Come Dancing judge Dame Arlene Phillips has picked up her first Olivier award at the age of 80.

Phillips received a standing ovation following her winning the award for her choreography on the musical Guys & Dolls.

Phillips thanked fellow choreographer James Cousins for helping her by “crawling around” on the floor to demonstrate the movements when she had issues with her knees.

She was a presented with a lifetime achievement award in 2023, but told the BBC this “means a lot more because it is actually about my work”.

The Operation Mincemeat team, who picked up the award for best new musical, have given a warning to people coming to see Monday’s show. “Should we be sensible and only have a few drinks or party in full style?” the cast asked the BBC. Before we had a chance to answer they all unanimously agreed that only a “few drinks was never on the cards”. The cast of the show, which tells the true story of secret mission that won Britain WWII, added: “Sorry if you’re coming to see the show on Monday, we might not be in the best way!”