Derek Jacobi, Michael Sheen and Bertie Carvel all scoop up gongs at Theatre Awards UK
The big winner at this year's Theatre Awards UK, which took place yesterday, was none other than thesp-extraordinaire Derek Jacobi, who scooped Best Performance in a Play for King Lear, whilst Bertie Carvel took home the award for Best Performance in a Musical for her role as Miss Trunchbull in Matilda the Musical. Michael Sheen and Bill Mitchell were also among the winners for their co-direction of the mamounth promenade play, The Passion in Port Talbot.
Formerly the dull sounding Theatrical Management Association Theatre Awards, they have this year re-branded and combined TMA Management Awards with TMA Theatre Awards to create the all-encompassing Theatre Awards UK, which were handed out in a ceremony at the Banqueting House, Whitehall.
With the re-branding, they place themselves in a position to highlight the changing ways theatre looks at its achievements. For one, Theatre Awards UK doesn't have separate categories for best male and female performance but instead acknowledges the different demands placed on actors in straight plays compared with the demands on performers in musicals.
The awards simultaneously recognise achievement in marketing (Lyric Hammersmith), and atmosphere with an award for Most Welcoming Theatre (Theatre Royal Stratford East) . Their more mainstream categories place equal importance on lesser-known (though not exactly fringe) regional productions as well as the heavily publicised London ones. Best New Play for example, went to Mike Barlett's Love, Love, Love, a Drum Theatre Plymouth and Paines Plough production. The award for Best Touring Production went to Propeller's Richard III and The Comedy of Errors and Best Show for Children and Young People to White by Catherine Wheels at Theatre Royal Bath.
Click here for a full list of the awards.
Image: Johan Persson
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