VERA DRAKE

MARTIN SCORSESE was named director of the year by the London Critics' Circle yesterday for The Aviator, his epic about the life of the millionaire, Howard Hughes, in a vote that will cheer those who believe this is the year when he will be finally honoured at the Oscars.

MARTIN SCORSESE was named director of the year by the London Critics' Circle yesterday for The Aviator, his epic about the life of the millionaire, Howard Hughes, in a vote that will cheer those who believe this is the year when he will be finally honoured at the Oscars.

VERA DRAKE, Mike Leigh's gritty film about a 1950s backstreet abortionist, continued its winning streak last night when it was named best film at a London awards ceremony .

Sideways

When it comes to home-grown movies, we're their harshest critics. MATTHEW SWEET deplores a long and ignoble tradition

Whenever I think about Mike Leigh's new film, Vera Drake, the one about abortion in the 1950s, I worry. Not about abortion. Not even about the1950s. What I worry about is how many women there are out there in real life who are called Vera Drake and whose life is being made difficult by it.

Main claim

Shakespeare In Love (15) Director: John Madden Starring: Joseph Fiennes, Gwyneth Paltrow, Geoffrey Rush 123 Mins

Cabaret is live and kicking again thanks to acts like the Callaway girls - and now London has its chance to say thank you

Well, I'm sure glad that's over. I've just spent seven days of agony, stricken by this loathsome virus that's working its way through the metropolis, closing all the theatres in the West End (it attacks understudies, apparently, with a special fury) and turning every conversation in media- land into an antiphon of shared symptoms: "Yeah, I had it too. Yeah, all last week. Yeah, the chest infection. Honestly, I thought I was going to die ..."

THEATRE: Guys and Dolls; Olivier, RNT, London

Interview: John Walsh meets Imelda Staunton

His name is synonymous with the West End musical, but last night Cameron Mackintosh faced his biggest test