Bolton Octagon dominates Manchester Theatre Awards

The Octagon's production of A View from The Bridge won three acting awards

Bolton's Octagon Theatre swept the board at this year's Manchester Theatre Awards, with its productions picking up awards in all four acting categories.

The theatre also won best production, for An Enemy of the People, while its artistic director David Thacker won the special achievement award.

The Octagon's haul of six awards marked Thacker's final year as artistic director at the theatre.

But Maxine Peake, shortlisted in two categories, went home empty-handed.

The annual awards - chosen by a panel of 10 of the region's leading theatre critics - were handed out in Manchester on Friday.

Colin Connor and Barbara Drennan won best actor and best actress respectively for A View from The Bridge, also directed by Thacker, with the Arthur Miller play picking up a third award for Natasha Davidson, for best supporting actress.

Connor won a second award, for being the writer, director and performer in Mr Smith at the Kings Arms, Salford, winning best performance in a fringe production.

David Birrell won best supporting actor for his part in Thacker's An Enemy of the People.

Peake was nominated for best actress - for her role as a demonic fairy in The Skriker at the Royal Exchange theatre - and for the new play award for writing Beryl, about cycling champion Beryl Burton, which was staged at The Lowry in Salford.

She was beaten to the new play award by The Rolling Stone, by Chris Urch at the Royal Exchange.

Peake said cyclist Beryl Burton's achievements had been 'criminally ignored'

The Royal Court's production of Constellations won three awards - best visiting productions, best actress in a visiting production (Louise Brealey) and best actor in a visiting production (Joe Armstrong) - beating households names including Sophie Thompson and Michael Ball.

The Palace theatre's production of The Bodyguard won best musical in a shortlist that included Guys and Dolls and Mack & Mabel, while the Royal Northern College Of Music's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream won best opera.

Analysis - Chris Long, entertainment reporter at the awards

In the foyer before the awards, the talk was mostly about the flurrying snow that was blanketing Manchester on a bitterly cold day, but in the theatre it was another force from the North that took breaths away - that of Bolton Octagon.

The theatre has fought hard to build a formidable reputation in recent years, a success which will be rewarded with a new £10m building in 2019, and its big wins in the acting categories showed just why it has become so highly regarded.

For the town's most well-known actress though, things didn't go so well as Maxine Peake failed to pick up an award for either her acting in the well-received The Skriker or her writing of the play Beryl. She's not exactly in Leonardo DiCaprio territory, given she has been crowned by the awards before, but after she failed to win for her critically-acclaimed Hamlet in 2015, missing out again felt like something of a shock.

David Thacker, the Octagon's artistic director, did have a Leonardo moment as his acceptance speech took in climate change and a fair few raised eyebrows. He, like many though, was working off the cuff as it seemed very few of the winners expected to win.

That led to charming and gushing moments - the sweetest of which belonged to a member of the victorious Contact Youth Company, who grinningly said discovering and joining the group had "literally changed my life".

Hearts, like the snow outside in the inevitable Manchester drizzle, melted.

Manchester Theatre Awards - key winners:

• Best production - An Enemy of the People (Octagon Theatre, Bolton)

• Best ensemble - Noises Off (Octagon Theatre, Bolton)

• Best actress -Barbara Drennan, A View From The Bridge and The Family Way (Octagon Theatre, Bolton)

• Best actor - Colin Connor, A View From The Bridge (Octagon Theatre, Bolton)

• Best supporting actor - David Birrell, An Enemy Of The People (Octagon Theatre, Bolton)

• Best supporting actress - Natasha Davidson, A View From The Bridge (Octagon Theatre, Bolton)

• Best new play - The Rolling Stone by Chris Urch (Royal Exchange)