Tim Minchin wins Whatsonstage.com Award

Matilda the Musical won many theatre fans over and over again, garnering public votes via Whatsonstage.com and winning four awards including one for its songwriter, Australian comedian Tim Minchin.

A musical theatrical adaptation of Roald Dahl’s classic novel, Matilda, swept up several prizes as voted by their audiences on the Whatsonstage.com awards night, one of the brightest stage stars among many other deserving winners.

Whatsonstage.com is a website and printed publication, cited as Britain’s biggest online hub, that encapsulates all that is theatre and performing arts in the country. It contains news and reviews along with ticket offers and discounts for members, catering to ardent fans of the stage with an one-stop site.

Whatsonstage.com began their own awards ceremony ten years ago and invited the public to vote for a prize, attracting a stunning number of voters. Since then, the awards ceremony branched out to include several voting categories, all open to voting by local theatre-goers, making Whatsonstage.com Awards the only one of its kind.

A panel selects several professional productions that opened between 1 December and 30 November for primary consideration, and reveals the shortlist to the public online and in publication, permitting only one vote in each category per person by careful monitoring to ensure that there is no overzealous button-clicking. For the awards in its twelfth year, over 70,000 individual voters took part, nearly doubling the number that had voted at the 2011 awards the previous year.

Roald Dahl’s loved tale of a little schoolgirl developing extraordinary powers to rebel against bullies, was adapted for the stage by the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and directed by Matthew Warchus. The slapstick musical had already netted several awards since its opening, including best musical at the coveted Evening Standard theatre awards, and won four out of nine nominations at the Whatsonstage.com Awards. The awards garnered were: Best New Musical, Best Choreographer (Peter Darling), London Newcomer of the Year (comedian Tim Minchin) and Best Set Design (Rob Howell).

Other stars of the awards ceremony were Ghost the Musical, picking up three prizes out of nine nominations including Best Actor in a Musical for Richard Fleeshman, and Shrek the Musical with Best Actress in a Musical for Amanda Holden. The pinnacle of the celebrations was the award for the Theatre Event of the Year, going to David Tennant and Catherine Tate’s duo in Much Ado About Nothing, which also took Best Shakespearean Production.

The director of Matilda the Musical was emotional on the night, sharing his accolades with the central characters of the successful play in his acceptance speech.

"Those four Matildas who perform are a real problem for me, because each time I watch the show I'm reduced to tears," said Matthew Warchus"

"So while I hope it (the musical) has a long and healthy run, it's not very good for my emotional stability."

For the full list of awards and winners as well as highlights, please visit http://awards.whatsonstage.com/