The Evening Standard Awards in London

Fashion and the stage collided at the 60th London Evening Standard Theatre Awards and sparks flew. Before the ceremony, Eddie Redmayne was dancing on the Cinderella Bar upstairs (all Edwardian plaster cupids and gilded rococo scrolls), whilst Naomi Campbell was making a glittering entrance below, dressed in a fabulous sheath of swirling golden sequins designed for her by Christopher Bailey, in a surprisingly va va voom mood. (Bailey, it will be noted, worked for years with Tom Ford at Gucci so he knows his way around a glamorous entrance-maker or two.) Tom himself was there, of course, sporting some fabulous Deco dress studs of diamond and onyx. Meanwhile, Victoria Beckham flashed a whopping sapphire on her pinkie, and young playwright Beth Steel looked a million dollars in a slither of silver satin from Zara.

Cohost Christopher Bailey as well as Christopher Kane and Erdem were only three hours off a plane from celebrating a mutual friend’s raucous 40th birthday in Norway, but looked remarkably fjord fresh.

Meanwhile, romance was in the air with lovely brides-to-be Sophie Hunter (the future Mrs. Benedict Cumberbatch) and Eddie’s fiancée Hannah Bagshawe (bonding with her wedding dress designer Sarah Burton) in attendance, and in the touching acceptance speech given by Tom Stoppard, recipient of the Lebedev Award, in which he graciously praised his presenter Benedict Cumberbatch, whom he first championed as a young unknown, and spoke movingly of the happiness he has found with Sabrina Guinness whom he married this year. (“As you saw,” he said modestly, after delivering this pitch-perfect speech, “I was just busking.”)

The seats in the auditorium had been covered over and set with crimson banquettes and tables were lit with golden deco lamps which came, as my dinner partner Natalie Massenet assured me, from her own bathroom. On my other side, I was lucky to have the vivacious Irish actress Sarah Greene (in a froth of crimson feathers by Dublin-based designer Umit Kutluk), attending with her beau Aidan Turner, on the eve of the screening of his third and final “Hobbit” movie, The Battle of the Five Armies the culmination of nearly four years of work for him.

We dined on chicken pot pie and then the grand tier above us was opened to students from the capital’s celebrated drama schools many of whose alums were in the audience or ultimately award presenters or recipients. The evening began with a movie by Mary Nighy with stills and footage from six decades of electrifying British theater, and presenters Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon took to the stage. They were hysterically funny, taking no prisoners with their relentlessly mischievous repartee, and even quoting from “the Bard himself,” said Brydon, “. . . that’s Shakespeare, for the students.” They pointed out that there were some other illustrious 60th anniversaries this year Burger King and John Travolta’s amongst them.

The ceremony then began with the Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright named for Anna’s father who originally persuaded newspaper proprietor Lord Beaverbrook to hold the awards won by the beauteous Beth Steel for Wonderland, whose touching, elegant speech praised her absent father, a recently retired coal miner whose story had inspired her to write the play. Then Laura Jane Matthewson won the Emerging Talent Award for her role in Dogfight at the Southwark Playhouse. “It’s such an honor to be invited to an event like this, and not to be serving the drinks,” she said, and brought the house down.

It was difficult to imagine that Sienna Miller, (presenting to Here Lies Love for “Beyond Theater” whose dynamic cast performed one of the numbers from the show), glittering in a Burberry sheath of ice blue and soft pink sparkling lace, had recently returned from living with her family in a tent in Panama. She handled the ragging from Coogan and Brydon with aplomb, and by, well, discreetly flipping them the bird. Sir Ian McKellan presented Kate Bush with the Editor’s Award. She was sweetly chuffed and the audience rose to their feet to acclaim her.

THE WINNERS IN FULL:

The Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright

Winner: Beth Steel (Wonderland)

The Emerging Talent Award in Partnership with Burberry

Winner: Laura Jane Matthewson (Dogfight)

Milton Shulman Award for Best Director

Winner: Jeremy Herrin (Wolf Hall & Bring Up the Bodies)

Beyond Theatre Award

Winner: Here Lies Love

Editor’s Award

Winner: Kate Bush (Before the Dawn)

The Best Design Award in Partnership with Heal’s

Winner:  Es Devlin (American Psycho)

Ned Sherrin Award for Best Musical

Winner: The Scottsboro Boys

Revival of the Year Award

Winner: Skylight

NOOK Award for Best Play

Winner: The James Plays

Best Actor Award

Winner: Tom Hiddleston

Natasha Richardson Award for Best Actress

Winner: Gillian Anderson

Lebedev Award

Winner: Tom Stoppard