Report: Finito Sponsors Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards

Finito Education stepped up this year as headline sponsor of the Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards, and the effect was rather in keeping with the day itself: a sense of things being taken seriously, but never solemnly. Theatre, after all, resists solemnity when it is alive.

Hosted with easy assurance by Mark Lawson, the ceremony at the National Theatre gathered that particular mix of polish and unpredictability which only the stage seems able to produce. There were big names, certainly, but also the quieter pleasure of seeing new ones arrive.

For Finito, the headline sponsorship was a natural evolution. The company has long supported the Most Promising Newcomer award, and there is something pleasingly consistent in that: an organisation concerned with direction and potential backing precisely the moment when both are most fragile and most full of possibility. This year, that prize went to Ruby Ashbourne Serkis for her performance in Indian Ink, confirming her as one to watch, and sooner rather than later. She fondly recalled to Finito afterwards that the late Sir Tom Stoppard had joined rehearsals by Zoom and amused the cast by smoking and laughing at his own jokes.

The evening itself had no shortage of established triumphs. Brendan Gleeson took Best Actor for The Weir, a production that managed the neat trick of winning over critics while somehow eluding the Olivier nominations. All My Sons, directed by Ivo van Hove, secured Best Revival as well as Best Director, reminding everyone that Arthur Miller’s moral machinery still runs with unnerving smoothness.

Tom Fletcher and Jessica Swale for Best Musical ‘Paddington’ at Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards 2026 at The National Theatre, London on 26th March 2026

There were multiple wins for Into the Woods, with Tom Scutt recognised for design and the production taking the inaugural Best Ensemble award, while Paddington: The Musical carried off Best New Musical, which feels, in its way, entirely right. One suspects Michael Bond might have approved.

New writing was well represented. James Graham won the Michael Billington Award for Best New Play for Punch, and Ava Pickett was named Most Promising Playwright for 1536, a Tudor drama already making the leap from Almeida to West End and on, inevitably, to television.

James Graham with The Michael Billington Award For Best New Play ‘Punch’ at Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards 2026 at The National Theatre, London on 26th March 2026

In the acting categories, Rosamund Pike won Best Actress for Inter Alia, a performance of considerable control and intelligence, while Hayley Atwell took Best Shakespearean Performance for Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, seeing off competition that included her co-star Tom Hiddleston. There was also recognition for the not-for-profit company Red Rose Chain, recipient of the Empty Space award, a reminder that innovation in theatre is often as much about where it happens as what is staged.

Hayley Atwell – Best Shakespearean Performance for ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ at Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards 2026 at The National Theatre, London on 26th March 2026

If the winners told one story, the tone of the evening told another. In introducing the newcomer award, Finito’s chief executive Ronel Lehmann spoke not as a sponsor but as an enthusiast. He recalled his first encounter with Guys and Dolls as a young man, and the way it fixed something in him that never quite left. It was a simple point, but a persuasive one. The company’s support, he said, comes from the heart.

That, in the end, is what made the sponsorship feel apt rather than imposed. There is always a risk, at events like these, that the commercial presence sits awkwardly alongside the artistic one. Here it did not. The alignment was clear enough: a belief in talent, in beginnings, and in the curious, enduring power of a stage to change the direction of a life.