Rock 'N' Roll, Caroline and the National Top London's Evening Standard Awards

Tom Stoppard's Rock 'N' Roll took top honors at this year's Evening Standard Drama Awards. It won for Best Play as well as an award for Rufus Sewell as Best Actor. Though Sewell has now left the cast, the play continues to run successfully at the Duke of York's Theatre, after transferring from the Royal Court. Stoppard, who is in New York for the Lincoln Center opening of the first part of his Coast of Utopia trilogy, accepted his award on film. When Sewell collected his own award, he commented, “This award is very special because it is quite easy to get recognized for being a newcomer but to still be in the game all these years later is fantastic."

Two Broadway transfers also garnered honors: Caroline, or Change at the National took the award for Best Musical ahead of commercial competition, and American star Kathleen Turner won the award for Best Actress for reprising her Broadway performance in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in the West End. Accepting the award, Turner commented, “As an American actress I have had Tony nominations before, but I have such great admiration for the quality of British theatre that I am truly thrilled."

The London fringe also had a good showing this year, with awards to Andrew Garfield named outstanding newcomer for performances in Beautiful Thing at the Sound Theatre as well as work at the National, Nina Raine most promising playwright for Rabbit, which was first seen at the Old Red Lion and a special award to the Tricycle for its pioneering work in political theatre, collected by Artistic Director Nicolas Kent.

The full list of winners is as follows:

Best Play
Rock ‘N' Roll by Tom Stoppard

Best Musical
Caroline, or Change
 

The Sydney Edwards Award for Best Director
Marianne Elliott – Pillars of the Community
 

Best Actor
Rufus Sewell – Rock ‘N' Roll
 

Best Actress
Kathleen Turner – Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Best Design
Timothy Bird projection design and David Farley set and costume design – Sunday In The Park With George

Editor's Award
Frost/Nixon

The Milton Shulman Award for Outstanding Newcomer
Andrew Garfield – Beautiful Thing; Burn/Chatroom/Citizenship; The Overwhelming
 

Most Promising Playwright
Nina Raine – Rabbit

Special Award
Tricycle Theatre for its pioneering work in political theatre