A lauded production of Waiting for Godot, and the Citizens and Royal Lyceum theatres, were among the honours at Scotland's theatre awards last night.
This year's Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland (CATS) also saw success for Lanark, a production based on Alasdair Gray's seminal novel, which won three awards.
Waiting for Godot, at the Royal Lyceum, won the Best Production and Best Ensemble awards for a show which featured Brian Cox and Bill Paterson in Beckett's iconic play.
Meanwhile, Glasgow’s Citizens Theatre picked up six awards which were shared equally between two "outstanding" shows: This Restless House and Lanark: A Life in Three Acts.
The best production prize in the 2016 CATS went to the Royal Lyceum’s production of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.
Mark Fisher, the co-convenor of the awards, said: "Mark Thomson’s lucid, precisely choreographed production got under the skin of a modern classic, ensuring it was not just a star vehicle for two very well known actors, but a full-blooded ensemble performance.
"It was one of the triumphs of the Royal Lyceum’s 50th-anniversary season and of the whole Scottish theatre calendar."
Joyce McMillan, co-convenor, added: "The success of Beckett’s perfectly poised drama depends on every element of the production working in harmony, and each of the characters – Vladimir, Estragon, their visitors Pozzo and Lucky, and even the little boy who appears to tell them that Mr Godot will not come today – supporting all the others.
"The cast in Mark Thomson’s production achieved this balance perfectly, and offered a masterclass in magnificent acting."
Zinnie Harris won the Best New Play award for her reworking of The Oresteia.
Dominic Hill won his fifth CATS Best Director award for This Restless House, and Pauline Knowles picked up her first Best Female Performance award, sponsored by STV, for her role in This Restless House.
The judges said: "As Clytemnestra in Zinnie Harris's This Restless House, Pauline Knowles was a queen and a mother who had, over a long decade, weaponised her anguish and rage at the murder of her child.
"She delivered her revenge hot with a combination of bleak, poetic wit, erotic power and decisive brutality. It was a remarkable performance which ran the gamut of human, and particularly female, experience, and in which Knowles embodied both Everywoman and the haughtiest of aristocrats."
Knowles’ award was collected by Keith Fleming as she is currently in Shanghai performing in The Garden – a sound Festival commission from John and Zinnie Harris.
Lanark: A Life in Three Acts won the Best Design award for Laura Hopkins, Nigel Edwards and Simon Wainwright, and the Best Technical Presentation award, sponsored by BECTU, for "an extraordinary blend of live action, lighting and sound, animation and projection".
Meanwhile, Sandy Grierson, who "proved once again how his powerful and charismatic presence can hold a stage" picked up his second Best Male Performance award for Lanark.
The Best Production for Children and Young People award, sponsored by Young Scot, was won by Uncanny Valley, a Borderline Theatre co-production with the Gaiety Theatre, commissioned by Edinburgh International Science Festival working in partnership with Imaginate.
The Best Music and Sound award, sponsored by Guitar Guitar, was won by the National Theatre of Scotland’s Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour.
The 2016 CATS Whiskers was awarded to Muriel Romanes, who recently stepped down as long-term artistic director of Stellar Quines, for her "vision and determination which have been a tremendous force in Scottish theatre-making as a whole."
The 2016 Awards were presented by Daniela Nardini and Sanjeev Kohli.
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