Paapa and Belgrade win at UK Theatre Awards

The RSC and the Belgrade Theatre both saw wins at this year’s UK Theatre Awards.

At the awards ceremony, held yesterday (Sunday) at the Guildhall in London, Paapa Essiedu won Best Performance in a Play for his role as Hamlet at the RSC; while the Belgrade picked up an award for Promotion of Diversity.

Paapa, 26, said his award was "a huge honour" and that the fact he was the RSC's first black Hamlet was "significant and insignificant at the same time".

He said: "It's significant in that the RSC is a national organisation that should represent everyone in our country regardless of your creed, colour, religion, sexuality, whatever.

"As such you would expect something like this to have happened before. But I think it was really important that it was happening now and we were really proud of the work that we did."

Hamlet ran at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre from March to August earlier this year.

Other winners included designer Lez Brotherston - who designed The Rover currently on at the RSC – he won with his work on Sheffield Crucible musicals Flowers For Mr Harris and Show Boat. Sir Ian McKellen, picked up Outstanding Contribution to British Theatre; and Vanessa Redgrave who was presented with the Gielgud Award for Excellence in the Dramatic Arts.

For a full list of winners visit www.uktheatre.org