The third annual 24 Hour Plays gala fundraiser was held at The Old Vic on Sunday 8 October 2006. Hosted by award-winning actress and comedienne Catherine Tate, and introduced by Old Vic Artistic Director Kevin Spacey, the evening featured a host of well-known faces from stage and screen as they’ve never been seen before, and will never be seen again.

Actors
Jonathan Cake, O-T Fagbenle, Pam Ferris, Dexter Fletcher, Tom Hardy, Anthony Head, Greg Hicks, Patricia Hodge, Tom Hollander, Adrian Lukis, Nichola McAuliffe, Nick Moran, Tamzin Outhwaite, Clarke Peters, Greta Scacchi, Rachael Stirling, Vince Vaughn, Greg Wise, Alicia Witt, Susannah York

Writers
April de Angelis, Simon Farquhar, Bryony Lavery, Colin Teevan, Sally Wainwright, Snoo Wilson

Directors
Robert Delamere, Nikolai Foster, Josie Rourke, Tim Roseman, Indhu Rubasingham, Bijan Sheibani

The £125,000 raised at the event provides vital support for Old Vic New Voices, which develops young and emerging talent and opens up The Old Vic to new and diverse audiences.

The 24 Hour Plays Celebrity Gala
Sunday, 8 October 2006
(from the Old Vic New Voices Gala promotional brochure, as transribed on thomagination.com)

Not your standard night of London theatre.  Greg Hicks shuffled off-stage wearing just surgical gloves, a leather jacket and a novelty sheep thong, leaving Tom Hollander to strip down to his Calvin Kleins and bellow, “I have an attractive penis” to the world.  Thus ended April de Angelis’ Buxton Gem, the final contribution to the 24 Hour Plays Celebrity Gala on Sunday 8 October 2006.

At 10pm the previous night 19 actors, six writers and six directors gathering The Old Vic’s rehearsal rooms to start exactly the same process that the Old Vic New Voices company would go through four weeks later.  Everyone was assured that the one absentee, Dominic West, would definitely be there the next morning.  But by the time the writers and fretted their way through the night and submitted their scripts, Dominic had phoned in sick and the search was on for a replacement.  At incredibly short notice Greg Wise stepped into the breach; 12 hours later he opened the show in Colin Teevan’s An Inexplicable Act of Violence

They say that the assembled talent rose to the challenge of creating six brand new plays in 24 hours would be a colossal understatement.  Tamzin Outhwaite and Patricia Hodge found time in their all too brief line-cramming sessions to practise their kissing for Simon Farquar’s Dream Me a Winter; Adrian Lukis risked his nasal health to join them in some on-stage sherbet shorting; Susannah York refused to be distracted from her own memorable performance ins Sally Wainwright’s Jubilee Terrace by her car being towed away; Vince Vaughn wrestled with his comedic conscience to get a huge laugh from the opening joke of Bryony Lavery’s Bourbon; and the cast of Snoo Wilson’s The Tourette Family gave their all in their attempt to break the world record for most swearing in a ten minute play.

A staggering 125,000 pounds was raised for Old Vic New Voices in a wonderful evening hosted by Catherine Tate, which began with Kevin Spacey pulling out a string of impressions from Cary Grant to Graham Norton, and ended with the new Voices company being the last to leave the after-show party at the Plaza, as they slowly realised that the spotlight was now firmly on them.

Nick Moran, for instance, kept breaking out of his part as a critic in a green dressing-gown to sing Frank Sinatra songs. The rest of the time he would battle for Greg Wise’s soul with a six-foot rabbit carrying a shotgun. – The Independent, October 9, 2006, Rhoda Koenig

Tom was the rabbit with the shotgun in An Inexplicable Act of Violence.

Links:
Old Vic Theatre (via the Wayback Machine)