The nominees for the 64th Evening Standard Awards have been reveled, with several categories expanding to five nominees to reflect the wealth of talent on the London theatre scene.
Laura Linney (My Name is Lucy Barton), Carey Mulligan (Girls and Boys), Cecilia Noble (Nine Night), Sophie Okonedo (Antony and Cleopatra) and Lia Williams (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie) will fight in the Best Actress category.
In the Best Actor category, Bryan Cranston (Network), Ian McKellen (King Lear), Ralph Fiennes (Antony and Cleopatra), Colin Morgan (Translations) and Kyle Soller (The Inheritance) go head to head for the award.
Company, Marianne Elliott‘s gender-swapped revival of Stephen Sondheim‘s musical, after last year unbelievable success in the US starring Broadway star Aaron Tveit,is nominated in four categories, Best Musical, Best Musical Performance (for Rosalie Craig as Bobbie), Best Design (for Bunny Christie) and Best Director for Marianne Elliott.
The National Theatre is nominated 14 times for shows including Antony and Cleopatra, The Lehman Trilogy, Nine Night (also a nomination for Roy Alexander Weise in the Emerging Talent Award category) Translations, Network and The Great Wave.
In Best Musical Performance, Arinzé Kene, nominated for his turn in Misty is fighting head to head with Kelli O’Hara for The King and I, Sharon D Clarke for Caroline, Or Change, Adrienne Warren for Tina and Rosalie Craig for Company.
Best Musical this year is for sure the strongest category: Hamilton, Caroline, Or Change, Company, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie and Fun Home.

Awards on 18 November at Theatre Royal Drury Lane