Best Supporting Actress in a Play
The Donmar proved a powerhouse for female performances this year and in Roots, it was Linda Bassett who took the honours as the rural mother, conveying decades of hardship, making do and a hard-won no-nonsense attitude almost entirely through the minutiae of managing the family home. A breath-taking performance of perfectly studied and understated detail.
Tom Hiddleston may have been the big name in the Donmar’s Coriolanus but for me, it was Deborah Findlay’s Volumnia that was the biggest performance, scorching the earth before her as the militaristic mother driving her son’s career and then breath-takingly chastened as the tragic consequences are reaped.
7-10
Best Supporting Actress in a Musical
She won the Olivier earlier this year and now she can add a fosterIAN to the list - her dry put-downs as the wise-cracking Sheila enlivened A Chorus Line no end, trying to shield herself a little from the reality of being one of the older members of the group and seeing her last shot at stardom slipping away.
In a musical full of strong black women, Hughes proved herself one of the strongest with an extraordinary performance in The Color Purple as singer Shug Avery, utterly self-possessed and ultimately self-obsessed and never less than unmissable when onstage.
7-10
Labels: Amy Booth-Steel, Anna Calder-Marshall, Cassidy Janson, Cecilia Noble, Deborah Findlay, fosterIANs, Hadewych Minis, Isabella Laughland, Katie Brayben, Leigh Zimmerman, Linda Bassett, Nicola Hughes, Sophia Nomvete