Best Supporting Actress in a Play
Ayesha Dharker, The Book of Dust
Ruth Wilson’s televisual take on Mrs Coulter is one of my favourite things in life so for Dharker to find an interpretation that complemented yet contrasted so effectively is quite something. Stunning costume work certainly helped but she located the perfect combination of compelling and chilling for me.
Honourable mention: Norah Lopez Holden, Hamlet
A fascinatingly different take on Ophelia that really worked by finding an affecting emotional truth to the character that I’ve rarely seen done before.
Liz Carr, The Normal Heart
Deborah Findlay, Romeo and Juliet
Anastasia Hille, Paradise
Gloria Obianyo, Paradise
Best Supporting Actress in a Musical
Carly Mercedes Dyer, Anything Goes
Against the star wattage of Sutton Foster, Dyer more than held her own as gangster’s moll Erma, full of vocal confidence and scene-stealing comic timing. And she impressed mightily in A Chorus Line too, a standout year for this most exciting of performers.
Honourable mention: Victoria Hamilton-Barritt & Rebecca Trehearn, Cinderella
As I said at the time, we’d all be winners if the musical was called The Stepmother and the Queen. Two larger-than-life scene-chewing turns that give the show so much of its life.
Emily Barnett-Salter, A Chorus Line
Kaisa Hammarlund, She Loves Me
Joanna Riding, Carousel