In a night of few surprises, Broadway musical Hamilton took home seven Olivier Awards including Best New Musical.
Nominated for a record breaking 13 awards, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical about one of America’s founding father’s, Alexander Hamilton won the coveted Best Actor in a Musical for Giles Terera’s portrayal of Aaron Burr, with Michael Jibson winning Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Musical for his portrayal of King George III.
Hamilton also won for technical awards in lighting, costume, sound and choreography.
It was a sombre night for Dominic Cooke’s revival of Follies at the National Theatre, nominated for 10 awards it came home with two: Best Revival of a Musical and Best Costume.
The Ferryman collected three Olivier Awards including Best New Play for Jez Butterworth, Best Director for Sam Mendes, and Best Actress for Laura Donnelly.
Bryan Cranston bested Paddy Considine, Andrew Garfield and Andrew Scott to win Best Actor for his portrayal of ‘mad as hell’ news anchor-man Howard Beale in Network at the National.
Denise Gough followed her 2016 Best Actress Award for People, Places & Things with a Best Actress in a Supporting Role award for playing Harper in Marianne Elliot’s revival of Tony Kushner’s play Angels in America at the National.
Shirley Henderson and Sheila Atim won Best Actress in a Musical and Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Musical respectively for Girl From The North Country, Conor McPherson’s musical based on the work of Bob Dylan. And Bertie Carvel was named Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Ink, written by James Graham who won Best New Comedy for Labour Of Love.
Hosted by comedian and actress Catherine Tate, the UK’s most prestigious theatre awards included performances from musical theatre legend Chita Rivera performing the iconic West Side Story track Somewhere, as well as nominated musicals including: Hamilton; Everybody’s Talking About Jamie; Girl From The North Country, Young Frankenstein, Follies and 42nd Street.
Presenters include Broadway’s grand dame Patti Lupone, Alexandra Burke, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Anne-Marie Duff, Beverley Knight, Cuba Gooding Jnr, Frank DiLella, Juliet Stevenson, Meera Syal, Mel Giedroyc, Michael Sheen, Ophelia Lovibond, Patti LuPone, Pearl Mackie and Sergei Polunin.
Not everything went to plan, with a rather embarrassing omission of theatre legend Sir Peter Hall from the Memorium section of the awards ceremony.
See the full list: Olivier Awards 2018 – Winners
