Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo’s dazzling performances as Antony and Cleopatra at the National Theatre have won them the top acting prizes at the UK’s oldest theatre awards.
Judges for the 64th Evening Standard theatre awards named Fiennes best actor and Okonedo best actress, both described by the Guardian’s Michael Billington as being “at the top of their game”.
They were given their prizes at a ceremony on Sunday night at London’s Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, part of an evening which also saw successes for Company, Hamilton and the Young Vic.
Fiennes and Okonedo were following in the footsteps of Anthony Hopkins and Judi Dench in 1987, and Alan Rickman and Helen Mirren in 1998, to play Antony and Cleopatra on the National Theatre stage.
The Hopkins/Dench production is considered legendary; the Rickman/Mirren one less so. Thus the stakes were high for the Simon Godwin-directed version, which opened at the National’s biggest stage, the Olivier, in September.
The reviews were, by and large, rave ones. Billington called it “a fine production that reminds us that Shakespeare’s play is death-haunted from the start and that its self-glorifying lovers exist in a dream of passion”.
In the Observer, Kate Kellaway said the production was “outstanding” while Ann Treneman in the Times said the show was “as big as it is spectacular” with Fiennes and Okonedo “simply terrific as the lovers who tempt fate one too many times”.
The production is almost sold out and finishes its run on 19 January. It will be broadcast live in cinemas on 6 December.
The Lin-Manuel Miranda musical Hamilton, which opened at the Victoria Palace Theatre in London a year ago, missed the deadline for last year’s awards so it was no surprise to see it named best musical in the 2018 awards. It won from a shortlist which also comprised Caroline, or Change; Company; Everybody’s Talking About Jamie; and Fun Home. One of its young stars, Jamael Westman, who plays Hamilton, won the emerging talent award.
Marianne Elliott was named best director for her production of the Stephen Sondheim musical Company, in which she swapped the gender of the main character.
She said the show, first performed in 1970 and originally centred on 35-year-old single man, Bobby, who could not commit to a steady relationship or marriage, was of its time. Making the lead character female allowed the show to explore important aspects of women’s lives today.
Rosalie Craig, who plays Bobbi, won the best musical performance award.
In total 10 awards were given at the ceremony presented by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, writer of Fleabag and Killing Eve.
She also said London theatre “has had a banger of a year for diversity,” paying tribute to the fact that 60% of the best play nominees were women.
Best play was awarded to The Inheritance, a seven-hour production by Matthew Lopez about the lives of a group of gay men in New York. It began at the Young Vic before transferring to the West End.
The Jungle, Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson’s powerful story of the Calais migrant camp, began there, too, before moving to the Playhouse theatre. Its designer, Miriam Buether, won the best design award.
The award for most promising playwright, named in honour of the Standard’s former editor Charles Wintour, went to Natasha Gordon for Nine Night which played at the National Theatre’s Dorfman space and is transferring to Trafalgar Studios in December. It was praised by critics including Billington, who said it had an extra resonance in the light of the Windrush scandal.
A special award named after the Standard’s Russian owner, Evgeny Lebedev, was given to Sir Cameron Mackintosh for his contribution to musical theatre.
For the first time, the awards paid what will become an annual tribute to the “behind-the-scenes heroes” of theatre. Designer John Galliano praised the role of the dresser, a job he did at the National early on in his career. He invited 26 dressers seated in the auditorium to join him on stage and take a bow.