Olivier Awards 2025: Giant, Benjamin Button and Fiddler on the roof triumph | Olivier Awards

The play giant, who portrays the children’s author, Roald Dahl, in the middle of an outcry on his anti -Semitism, triumphed at the Olivier Awards during a star evening at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

The American star John Lithgow won the prize for best actor for his performance as Dahl, Elliot Levey won the best support actor (for editor Tom Maschler) and Mark Rosenblatt received the Best New Game Prize.

Giant is the beginnings of Rosenblatt as a playwright and brought him a double victory to the circot ‘Circle Theater Awards in March, where he won the most promising and the best new play playwright. Giant ran last year at the London Royal Court and will be transferred to the West End later this month, Lithgow and Levey taking their roles.

Lithgow thanked the public for having “welcoming me in England” and said “it is not always easy when you welcome an American in the middle of you”, stressing that this moment was “more complicated than usual” for relations between the United States and the United Kingdom.

He remembered having seen the “astonishing performance” of Laurence Olivier at The Old Vic in the dance of death in the late 1960s. “I thought of him and I stole him just about all the performances that I have ever played on stage,” he added.

The count of Giant of Three Olivier Awards on Sunday evening was equaled by two musicals: the curious case of Benjamin Button and Fiddler on the roof.

The first, based on the news of F Scott Fitzgerald and with music and words by Jethro Compton and Darren Clark, won the best musical and exceptional musical contribution (for the orchestrations and arrangements of Clark and Mark Aspinall) and the best musical actor (John Dagleish as hero who is born of each day). Dagleish, who won an Olivier Award in 2015 for depicting Ray Davies in the afternoon Sunny Musical Kinks, said that his deceased mother was his “plus one” on this occasion. He dedicated the price to her and said “she would have liked” the curious case of Benjamin Button.

Previously organized in the Fringe who came Southwark Playhouse in 2019, he now takes place at the West End Ambassadors Theater which recently opened his own advertising on site, the marinated crab, named after a watering hole in Cornwalls in the musical.

Fiddler on the Roof, which received a five -star Guardian review at the Regent’s Park Open Theater and is transferred to the Barbican next month, had received a total of 13 Olivier nominations, equaling a record established by the musical Hamilton in 2018.

The classic musical – composed of Jerry Bock, with words by Sheldon Harnick and Joseph Stein’s book – won nine Tony Awards in 1965 for his original Broadway production. The new production of director Jordan Fein won the olive trees for the best musical renewal, the best Set design (Tom Scutt) and the best sound design (Nick Lidster).

The ceremony, which celebrates the cream of the London theater, was organized by the actors Beverley Knight, winner of the 2023 awards, and Billy Porter, who features the master of ceremonies in Cabaret. It opened its doors with Knight and Porter, performing Luck be a lady of musical guys and dolls.

Romola Garai achieved the unusual feat of fighting to win the prize for best actress in a support role. She had been nominated twice in this category, recognizing her performances in Giant and the years.

The latter won his victory. Based on the memory of the Nobel Prize, Annie Ernaux, the years (at the Almeida Theater) also received the prize for the best director, with the Norwegian of the Eline Arbo theater becoming the sixth woman to win this prize at the olive trees.

Garai said that the years had been the “greatest privilege of my life” and thanked “My family of Annies” (all the actors share the main role of Annie and play support characters). She called Arbo a “genius” who “put the life of all women on stage”. Garai also thanked her husband for her support when she faced the two productions.

Arbo previously directed the years for International Theater Amsterdam, the world renowned company which also organized the modern version of Robert Icke of Sophocles Oedipus several years ago.

Oedipus, which Icke made with a new West End casting, won the best renewal and the best actress for Lesley Manville in the role of Jocasta.

ICKE praised his “24 carat team”, including producer Sonia Friedman, who, according to him, said that the industry was “lucky to have”. (Garai, too, thanked Friedman, who produced the years.) The experience of the production of Oedipus had been joyful for the whole, added ICKE, who observed in as “incest really bringing people together”. Manville noted ICKE “Care and Precision” as director of his speech.

The prize for the best actress in a musical went to Imelda Staunton for her roof turn in Hello, Dolly! at Palladium. It was the 14th nomination and fifth victory of Staunton to the olive trees. The most appreciated person in the history of Olivier prices is the constable Paule lighting designer, who received 17 nominations, and won his sixth prize for Oliver! (Shared with Ben Jacobs). Constable announced his retirement from the theater earlier this year.

The prize for the best theater choreographer went to Christopher Wheeldon for the Bio-Drama by Michael Jackson MJ The Musical, the best costume design went to Gabriella Slade for colorful trains at Rollers at Starlight Express and Maimuna Memon won the prize for the best actress in a supporting role in a musical for Natasha, from 1812.

Layton Williams, on the other hand, became Olivier’s first winner of history to be recognized for having portrayed an iceberg (he took the best support actor in a musical for The Zany Titanique). The Mark-Anthony Turnage festival at the Royal Opera House won two awards: the best production of the new opera and exceptional achievements in Opera (for Tenor Allan Clayton).

The national theater, the former VIC and the Colosseum was among the main places whose appointments of the shows did not lead to a victory, although Rufus Norris received a special prize for his 10 -year term as director of the National.

Created in 1976, the Olivier Awards are supervised by the Society of London Theater. The winners are chosen by a team of industry personalities, stage lighting and public members who love the theater.