James Norton, Andrew Scott, Sarah Jessica Parker, Sarah Snook and David Tennant are among the stars to have received Olivier nominations in a year when British theatre was dominated by celebrity castings.
Competition had been fierce for this year’s prestigious honours, with significantly more theatre productions running in the UK than last year – and many of them becoming instant sellouts due to their inclusion of leading TV, film and music figures.
Norton has been nominated for A Little Life, Parker for Plaza Suite, Tennant for Macbeth, and Snook and Scott for their one-person performances in The Picture of Dorian Gray and Vanya, respectively. Other onscreen stars nominated are Nicole Scherzinger for Sunset Boulevard, Sheridan Smith for Shirley Valentine, Mark Gatiss for The Motive and the Cue, and Joseph Fiennes for Dear England.
Football drama Dear England is the most nominated play with nine nods, including Fiennes for best actor, Will Close for best actor in a supporting role, Gina McKee for best actress in a supporting role, Rupert Goold for best director and The Londoner Award for best new play.
The National Theatre production, which transferred to the Prince Edward Theatre in the West End, additionally received nominations for best set design (Es Devlin), best lighting design (Jon Clark) and best sound design (Dan Balfour and Tom Gibbons). It is also the only play with a nomination for best theatre choreographer (Ellen Kane and Hannes Langolf). The Guardian called it a “touching, funny retelling of [England manager] Gareth Southgate’s quiet revolution”.
In total, the National Theatre has garnered the most nominations (15) across its productions, with The Motive and the Cue, Till the Stars Come Down and The Effect also recognised across a number of categories.
But this year’s single most nominated production is Jamie Lloyd’s musical Sunset Boulevard, a revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ballad to Hollywood at the Savoy theatre. It received nominations for best actress in a musical (Scherzinger), best actor in a musical (Tom Francis), best actor in a supporting role in a musical (David Thaxton) and best actress in a supporting role in a musical (Grace Hodgett Young).
Sunset Boulevard also received recognition for best musical revival, the Sir Peter Hall award for best director (Lloyd) and outstanding musical contribution nomination (Alan Williams). Its production team nominations include best lighting design (Jack Knowles), best sound design (Adam Fisher), best set design (Soutra Gilmour) and best theatre choreographer (Fabian Aloise).
Meanwhile, the nominations for best new musical are The Little Big Things, Next To Normal, Operation Mincemeat and A Strange Loop.
Alongside Parker, Snook and Smith, nominees for best actress also include Sophie Okonedo and Laura Donnelly.
Donnelly starred in The Hills of California, written by her husband Jez Butterworth, which has been nominated for best new play alongside James Graham’s Dear England, Jack Thorne’s The Motive and the Cue and Beth Steel’s Till the Stars Come Down.
Haydn Gwynne has been posthumously nominated for best actress in a supporting role for her performance in When Winston Went to War With the Wireless at Donmar Warehouse. Lorraine Ashbourne (Till the Stars Come Down), Priyanga Burford (An Enemy of the People), and Tanya Reynolds (A Mirror) join her and McKee (Dear England) in the category.
The plays nominated for best revival were the Donmar Warehouse’s Macbeth, the National’s The Effect (by Lucy Prebble), and Shirley Valentine (by Willy Russell) and Vanya (by Anton Chekhov and adapted by Simon Stephens), which were both staged at the Duke of York’s theatre.
Alongside Sunset Boulevard, there has also been a swell of strong favourites in the best musical revival category, including the Old Vic’s Groundhog Day, which won the Olivier award for best new musical in 2017, the Bridge theatre’s immersive Guys & Dolls, and Hadestown at the Lyric theatre.
Eleanor Worthington Cox, who at the age of 10 became the youngest Olivier winner in 2012 for Matilda, has been nominated for best actress in a supporting role in a musical for her performance in Next to Normal at the Donmar Warehouse.
The Olivier awards will take place on Sunday 14 April at the Royal Albert Hall, hosted by Hannah Waddingham and broadcast via ITV.
