Actor John Lithgow’s Giant is among the big winners at Olivier Awards
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US actor John Lithgow nabs the Best Actor prize at the Olivier Awards for his role as Roald Dahl in Giant.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
Alex Marshall
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LONDON – Giant, a play about Roald Dahl’s anti-Semitism starring American actor John Lithgow as the truculent British children’s author, was one of the big winners at the Olivier Awards 2025, Britain’s equivalent of the Tonys.
The play, which was staged at the Royal Court in 2024 and is transferring to the West End on April 26, took home three awards at the ceremony on April 6 at the Royal Albert Hall in London – Best Actor for Lithgow; Best Supporting Actor for Elliot Levey as a publisher trying to get Dahl to apologise for his statements about Jews; and the coveted Best New Play award.
For that final prize, Giant bested four other titles, including The Years, an acclaimed staging of a French woman’s life (featuring a back-street abortion and late-in-life affair) that is running at the Harold Pinter Theatre until April 19.
The success for Giant was perhaps unsurprising given how much critics praised its opening run. Mr Clive Davis, in The Times of London, said the “subtle, intelligent and stylishly crafted” drama, written by Mark Rosenblatt and directed by Nicholas Hytner, “deserves to transfer to a bigger stage”.
Lithgow, 79, has said in interviews that he wants to take the play to Broadway in New York.
Mr Houman Barekat, in a review for The New York Times, said Lithgow was “superb as the beleaguered but unrepentant writer, blending affable, avuncular esprit with scowling, cranky prickliness and nonchalant cruelty”.
Two other productions also won three awards – a revival of Fiddler On The Roof, the much-loved 1964 musical, which ran at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in 2024; and The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, a folk-rock adaptation of late American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald’s story about a man who ages in reverse.
Fiddler On The Roof, which is transferring to London’s Barbican in May, won the Best Musical Revival prize, among other awards. Its competitors were a production of Hello, Dolly! that ran at the London Palladium; and ongoing revivals of Starlight Express at the Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre and Oliver! at the Gielgud Theatre.
British actress Lesley Manville won Best Actress in a Play for her role as Jocasta in Oedipus.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, which is playing at the Ambassadors Theatre, took home the Best New Musical award, as well as the trophy for Best Actor in a Musical for its lead, John Dagleish, and the Outstanding Musical Contribution prize.
The night’s other major prizes went to a host of productions.
The Best Director award, which pits the most talked-about plays and musicals against one another, went to Eline Arbo for The Years – a play that has grabbed attention in London for more than the action onstage. The show’s producer Sonia Friedman said that at almost every performance, an audience member has fainted during the abortion scene.
The Best Actress in a Musical prize went to Imelda Staunton in the title role of Hello, Dolly!, while the Best Actress in a Play award went to Lesley Manville for her role as Jocasta in English director Robert Icke’s Oedipus, which ran at Wyndham’s Theatre.
The Best New Comedy or Entertainment award went to a West End version of Titanique, an absurd retelling of Canadian director James Cameron’s Titanic (1997) movie featuring songs by singer Celine Dion that had its New York premiere in 2022. NYTIMES
