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Macbeth and Joan of Arc storm ES awards
Louise Jury, Chief Arts Correspondent27 Nov 2007
The reputed curse of Macbeth was nowhere to be seen as the Scottish play proved a double winner at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards.
Patrick Stewart, who is selling out the West End in the title role, fought off stiff competition to be named best actor.
Rising star Rupert Goold took the Sydney Edwards award for best director against Tim Supple's Indian version of A Midsummer Night's Dream and the National team of Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris for War Horse.
Goold's Macbeth production, which began at the Chichester Festival before transferring to the Gielgud, won rave reviews, producing the strongest ticket sales for a Shakespeare in the West End in years.
The critics hailed Stewart for a performance which showed him in "absolute command of his art".
He beat Charles Dance (Shadowlands), Robert Lindsay (The Entertainer) and Mark Rylance (Boeing Boeing) to take his award from Cranford star Eileen Atkins at the Savoy.
Stewart said: "It's wonderful, we're all aglow. All of us who believe the best possible theatre should be in London are thrilled."
Goold said he was "gobsmacked" at the award. He added: "They said it was a great year and it really is. Look at all the amazing people on the shortlist."
Anne-Marie Duff, the star of Channel 4's Shameless, was presented with the best actress award by Samuel West for her impassioned performance as Joan Of Arc in the National Theatre's production of George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan.
In a shortlist including Billie Piper for her stage debut (Treats), Portia (The Member of the Wedding) and Penelope Wilton (John Gabriel Borkman), the Standard's theatre critic Nicholas de Jongh hailed Duff 's performance as "one of the greatest performances I've ever seen - absolutely devastating".
Duff said: "The Standard awards are really prestigious so I am honoured and surprised. It is always a thrill when your work is recognised."
Ian McKellen, back in the West End as King Lear, announced that A Disappearing Number by Simon McBurney and Complicite, a dazzling mathematical intrigue, was this year's best play beating Rafta, Rafta and The Reporter.
The best musical award, renamed in honour of the late broadcaster, director and playwright Ned Sherrin and presented by Sheila Hancock, went to Hairspray, the Broadway transfer that skipped into nominations to pip Parade and Fiddler On The Roof.
In a year of innovative stagings, Rae Smith and the Handspring Puppet Company walked away with best design for their astonishing creations of puppet horses in the National's adaptation of Michael Morpurgo's novel War Horse. It left The Masque Of The Red Death, Punchdrunk's new work, without a win despite much praise from the judges.
Polly Stenham, 20, took the £25,000 Charles Wintour award for most promising playwright for That Face, her audacious play of middle-class dysfunction at the Royal Court Upstairs.
The prize is donated by Lord Rothermere, the Evening Standard's proprietor, and Anna Wintour, editor of American Vogue, in honour of her father, Charles Wintour, a former Standard editor and founder of the awards in 1955.
The Milton Shulman award for outstanding newcomer went to Stephen Wight, 27, for two performances - in Patrick Marber's poker drama, Dealer's Choice just transferring to the West End, and Don Juan In Soho at the Donmar.
Sophie Okonedo, who has just finished a new film Skin with Sam Neill, presented the special award, given at the discretion of the judges. After transforming venues including the Royal Court and Young Vic and the Almeida's temporary spaces at the Gainsborough Studios and King's Cross, Stephen Tompkins, the architect, was this year's recipient for innovative theatre architecture.
Evening Standard editor Veronica Wadley said the awards "recognise the huge reservoir of theatrical talent in London, in directing, writing and design and perhaps especially in acting".
Straight plays made a comeback after fears last year they were becoming an endangered species in the face of the musical.
Ms Wadley said that "2007 has once again seen serious theatre centrestage".
The problem of the need for major refurbishment of London's listed theatre stock had reared its head this year, she added.
"We are fighting for the very fabric of our theatres - £250 million is needed to restore them," she said.
"And no, it should not all come from the punters. The Heritage Lottery Fund, the London Development Agency and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport must do their bit, too. The Evening Standard is backing you on this."
Ms Wadley paid a special tribute to Sherrin, who compered the awards last year, and who died last month.
The awards were chosen by a panel of critics: Nicholas de Jongh of the Evening Standard, Georgina Brown of the Mail On Sunday, Susanna Clapp of The Observer, Benedict Nightingale of The Times and Charles Spencer of the Daily Telegraph.
EVENING STANDARD THEATRE AWARDS
Best Play
A Disappearing Number - Simon McBurney and Complicite (Barbican)
Best Actor
Patrick Stewart - Macbeth (Chichester Festival, then Gielgud)
Best Actress
Anne-Marie Duff - Saint Joan (Olivier, National)
The Sydney Edwards Award for Best Director
Rupert Goold - Macbeth (Chichester Festival, then Gielgud)
The New Sherrin Award for Best Musical
Hairspray - (Shaftesbury Theatre)
Best Design
Rae Smith and the Handspring Puppet Company - War Horse (Olivier, National)
The Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright
Polly Stenham - That Face (Royal Court Upstairs)
The Milton Shulman Award for Outstanding Newcomer
Stephen Wright - Dealer's Choice/Don Juan in Soho (Menier Chocolate Factory/Donmar Warehouse)
Special Award
Stephen Tompkins for innovative theatre architecture
Reader views (1)
Hairspray may be good as popular lightweight entertainment but for quality, content, and intelligence the Donmar's Parade is certainly superior.
A piece of "mathematical intrigue" as Best Play? Sure A Disappearing Number was clever with an eye-catching presentation, but for me it could have done with less intrigue and more substance.
- Mike Richardson, Kingston upon Thames, 28/11/2007 02:40
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