Having won pretty much every award available, for her performance in Suzie Miller’s Prima Facie Jodie Comer may have been considered a shoe-in for the Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards too, but the big news is the Best Actress gong going to Patsy Ferran.
Ferran joined the cast of Rebecca Frecknall’s A Streetcar Named Desire just four days before the first performance to play Blanche DuBois opposite Paul Mescal.
Mescal lost out on the Best Actor Award to Giles Terera, who has been seen this year in Othello at the National Theatre and in Blues for an Alabama Sky, the latter also bagging Best Director for Lynette Linton.
Other notables from the Critics’ Awards are The Trewin Award for Best Shakespearean Performance and the Jack Tinker Award for Most Promising Newcomer, both taken home by performers with disabilities. Arthur Hughes won for his Richard III (the first time the Royal Shakespeare Company has cast an actor with a disability to play the role) and Lizzie Annis won for her performance as Laura in The Glass Menagerie.
The Michael Billington Award for Best New Play went to Peter Morgan for Patriots. Tyrell Williams took home the George Devine Award and the award for Most Promising Playwright for Red Pitch.
The Peter Hepple Award for Best Musical went to Oklahoma!, and the 2023 Empty Space Peter Brook Award went to the New Diorama.
The Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards are chosen by members. From next year, at least one regional judge will be included to consider theatre outside London.
The winners in full are:
- Best New Play (The Michael Billington Award) — Peter Morgan, Patriots
- Best Musical (The Peter Hepple Award) — Oklahoma!, Young Vic, Bard SummerScape & associates
- Best Actor — Giles Terera, Othello and Blues For An Alabama Sky
- Best Actress — Patsy Ferran, A Streetcar Named Desire
- Best Shakespearean Performance (The Trewin Award) — Arthur Hughes, Richard III
- Best Director — Lynette Linton, Blues For An Alabama Sky
- Best Designer — Tom Pye, My Neighbour Totoro
- Most Promising Playwright — Tyrell Williams, Red Pitch
- Most Promising Newcomer (The Jack Tinker Award) — Lizzie Annis, The Glass Menagerie
- The Empty Space Peter Brook Award — New Diorama