Andrew Scott has been named best actor at the Critics’ Circle theatre awards for playing every role in Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, adapted by Simon Stephens. In February, the star won best actor at the Critics’ Circle film awards for his performance in Andrew Haigh’s film All of Us Strangers. It is the first time both awards have been won by the same actor in the same year.
The Fleabag star took all eight roles in the solo show Vanya, which ran at the Duke of York’s theatre in London, directed by Sam Yates, and was released in cinemas last month. Scott previously picked up the best actor award for Present Laughter at the 2019 awards and the best Shakespearean performance award for Hamlet in 2017.
This year, the prize for best Shakespearean performance went to David Tennant for Macbeth at the Donmar Warehouse. Sophie Okonedo won best actress for @sohoplace’s Medea and Rupert Goold took best director for Dear England, the Gareth Southgate drama that ran at the National Theatre, transferred to the West End and is being adapted for a BBC TV series. Nicholas Hytner’s immersive Bridge theatre production of Guys & Dolls, which has been running for just over a year and is booking until the end of summer, was named best musical.
The award for most promising playwright was shared by Marcelo dos Santos for Backstairs Billy in the West End and Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini for Sleepova at the Bush theatre. The most promising newcomer also had joint winners: Jack Wolfe for the musical Next to Normal and Louis McCartney for Stranger Things: The First Shadow. McCartney had never even set foot in a West End theatre, let alone the stage, before taking on the role. Stranger Things: The First Shadow also received the best designer award, which went to Miriam Buether and 59 Productions.
In 2023 the Critics’ Circle announced that it would incorporate the Empty Space Peter Brook award for innovative venue, which ran independently from 1989-2017, as one of its categories in honour of the director who died in 2022. This year’s recipient is the Orange Tree in Richmond.
Jack Thorne’s The Motive and the Cue, the National Theatre’s backstage drama about John Gielgud and Richard Burton rehearsing Hamlet in 1964, won the Michael Billington award for best new play. That award was renamed in honour of the Guardian’s former chief theatre critic when he stepped down from the role at the end of 2019.
