Bertie,
Ok, so we have a specific weakness for handsome British men. This is well documented and understood. But. When a handsome British man gives a tour-de-force performance in the biggest musical of the year? Yeah, we can get into that.
Your performance as Matilda’s severe and severely coiffed teacher, Agatha Trunchbull, had us both recoiling in terror and laughing until we wept. Because for all her cartoonish setup — her towering height and knee socks and set of 48DDDs — there is a real person under there with some real, real damage.
For that, you win the Tony of Our Hearts. Bonus points for being in the Les Miz movie. And for giving us one of the most captivating New York Times theater profiles of the year, wherein you a) kind of made fun of Williamsburg and then admitted that you liked it and b) called yourself a socialist, even though that can be a scary thing to say to the paper of record in America. Well done you on both counts. We hope Broadway figures out a way to keep you around for a while. Parade revival, anyone?
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