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CRITICS' AWARDS FOR THEATRE IN SCOTLAND
CATS AWARDS 2023
WINNERS & NOMINEES
The 2023 CATS winners were announced at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh on Sunday 11 June. Special guest presenters were River City actor and celebrated panto villain Grant Stott, and BAFTA-award winning actor Shauna MacDonald.
Here are the winners of the Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland 2023.
Image © Infinite Blue Designs
Outstanding Performance
Two Winners
Adura Onashile
Medea in Medea
(National Theatre of Scotland)
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
(National Theatre of Scotland)
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
David Haymen
Eric in Cyprus Avenue
(Tron Theatre)
WINNER - Outstanding Performance
“Cyprus Avenue stands or falls on the central performance. We have to believe in Eric’s unshakeable knowledge that his new granddaughter is Gerry Adams. We also have to believe in his Ulster provenance – it must feel bone deep, not sprayed on. David Hayman delivered on both in a performance that was funny, moving and terrifying in equal measures.“
Anna Burnside (Daily Record/Sunday Mail)
Image © David Ireland
(Tron Theatre)
WINNER - Outstanding Performance
“Cyprus Avenue stands or falls on the central performance. We have to believe in Eric’s unshakeable knowledge that his new granddaughter is Gerry Adams. We also have to believe in his Ulster provenance – it must feel bone deep, not sprayed on. David Hayman delivered on both in a performance that was funny, moving and terrifying in equal measures.“
Anna Burnside (Daily Record/Sunday Mail)
Image © David Ireland
Emma McCaffrey
Annis Drummond in Castle Lennox
(Royal Lyceum Theatre and Lung Ha Theatre)
Image © Pete Dibdin
(Royal Lyceum Theatre and Lung Ha Theatre)
Image © Pete Dibdin
Mathew Pidgeon
Sir John Wedderburn in Enough of Him
(National Theatre of Scotland and Pitlochry Festival Theatre)
Image © Sally Jubb
(National Theatre of Scotland and Pitlochry Festival Theatre)
Image © Sally Jubb
Nicole Cooper
Lady Macbeth in Macbeth (an undoing)
(Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh)
Image © Stuart Armitt
(Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh)
Image © Stuart Armitt
Omar Austin
Joseph Knight in Enough of Him
(National Theatre of Scotland and Pitlochry Festival Theatre)
Image © Sally Jubb
(National Theatre of Scotland and Pitlochry Festival Theatre)
Image © Sally Jubb
Ramesh Meyyappan
Love Beyond (Act of Remembrance)
(Raw Material and Vanishing Point)
Image © Tommy Ga Ken Wan
(Raw Material and Vanishing Point)
Image © Tommy Ga Ken Wan
Sally Reid
Shirley Valentine, in Shirley Valentine
(Pitlochry Festival Theatre)
WINNER - Outstanding Performance
“In Elizabeth Newman’s captivating production of the Willy Russell monologue, Sally Reid made it feel like she was chatting to each of us individually. Alone on the stage, she made the big Pitlochry auditorium seem as intimate as her kitchen. With a downbeat wit, she played Shirley Valentine, the neglected Liverpool housewife, with charm, humour and a sparkle in her eye. She earned big laughs, but it was her unaffected honesty and emotional truth that made this a masterclass in acting“
Mark Fisher (The Guardian)
Image © Fraser Band
(Pitlochry Festival Theatre)
WINNER - Outstanding Performance
“In Elizabeth Newman’s captivating production of the Willy Russell monologue, Sally Reid made it feel like she was chatting to each of us individually. Alone on the stage, she made the big Pitlochry auditorium seem as intimate as her kitchen. With a downbeat wit, she played Shirley Valentine, the neglected Liverpool housewife, with charm, humour and a sparkle in her eye. She earned big laughs, but it was her unaffected honesty and emotional truth that made this a masterclass in acting“
Mark Fisher (The Guardian)
Image © Fraser Band
Best Ensemble
Castle Lennox
(Royal Lyceum Theatre and Lung Ha Theatre)
“Castle Lennox, saw possibly the most brilliantly diverse cast on any stage this year bring a complex play about a truly shameful element of Scotland’s social history to light. Lung Ha always create work which impresses but this production, which we have had to wait so many years to see, took their unique method of using an all-professional cast of people with and without learning disabilities to a new level with a production that was frequently funny as well as utterly heartbreaking.”
Thom Dibdin (AllEdinburghTheatre.com)
Image © Pete Dibdin
“Castle Lennox, saw possibly the most brilliantly diverse cast on any stage this year bring a complex play about a truly shameful element of Scotland’s social history to light. Lung Ha always create work which impresses but this production, which we have had to wait so many years to see, took their unique method of using an all-professional cast of people with and without learning disabilities to a new level with a production that was frequently funny as well as utterly heartbreaking.”
Thom Dibdin (AllEdinburghTheatre.com)
Image © Pete Dibdin
Kidnapped
(National Theatre of Scotland)
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Ode to Joy (how Gordon got to go to the nasty pig party)
(Stories Untold / James Ley)
Image © Tommy Ga Ken Wan
Image © Tommy Ga Ken Wan
Red Riding Hood
(Citizens Theatre at Tramway)
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Best Director
Andy Arnold
Cyprus Avenue
(Tron Theatre)
Image © David Ireland
(Tron Theatre)
Image © David Ireland
Dominic Hill
Alföld
(A Play, A Pie and A Pint)
Image © Tommy Ga Ken Wan
(A Play, A Pie and A Pint)
Image © Tommy Ga Ken Wan
Michael Boyd
Medea
(National Theatre of Scotland)
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
(National Theatre of Scotland)
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Orla O'Loughlin
Enough of Him
(National Theatre of Scotland and Pitlochry Festival Theatre)
Image ©
WINNER - Best Director
“Appropriately for a four-hander, May Sumbwanyambe’s subtle and slippery play was directed by Orla O’Loughlin as if it were a square dance. It was about Joseph Knight, a real-life black slave brought from Jamaica to 18th-century Perthshire and was compellingly staged by the National Theatre of Scotland and Pitlochry Festival Theatre. O’Loughlin set a steady pace, giving the actors time to establish the codes and conventions that held the characters in check, drawing forth nuanced and complex performances from Omar Austin, Matthew Pidgeon, Rachael-Rose McLaren and Catriona Faint, on a set by Fred Meller that captured the contradictions of colonialism.”
Mark Fisher (The Guardian)
Image © Sally Jubb
(National Theatre of Scotland and Pitlochry Festival Theatre)
Image ©
WINNER - Best Director
“Appropriately for a four-hander, May Sumbwanyambe’s subtle and slippery play was directed by Orla O’Loughlin as if it were a square dance. It was about Joseph Knight, a real-life black slave brought from Jamaica to 18th-century Perthshire and was compellingly staged by the National Theatre of Scotland and Pitlochry Festival Theatre. O’Loughlin set a steady pace, giving the actors time to establish the codes and conventions that held the characters in check, drawing forth nuanced and complex performances from Omar Austin, Matthew Pidgeon, Rachael-Rose McLaren and Catriona Faint, on a set by Fred Meller that captured the contradictions of colonialism.”
Mark Fisher (The Guardian)
Image © Sally Jubb
Best Design
Anna Orton, Ben Ormerod, Tim Reid & Zofia Chamienia
Kidnapped
(National Theatre of Scotland)
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Anna Orton (set and costume designer), Ben Ormerod (lighting designer) Tim Reid (video designer) Zofia Chamienia (illustrator)
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
(National Theatre of Scotland)
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Anna Orton (set and costume designer), Ben Ormerod (lighting designer) Tim Reid (video designer) Zofia Chamienia (illustrator)
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Becky Minto & Simon Wilkinson
Love Beyond (Act of Remembrance)
(Raw Material and Vanishing Point)
Becky Minto (Set & Costume) Simon Wilkinson (Lighting Designer)
Image © Tommy Ga Ken Wan
(Raw Material and Vanishing Point)
Becky Minto (Set & Costume) Simon Wilkinson (Lighting Designer)
Image © Tommy Ga Ken Wan
Tom Piper, Alex Berry & Lizzie Powell
Macbeth (an undoing), (Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh)
Tom Piper (Set Design) Alex Berry (Costume Design /Associate Set Designer) and Lizzie Powell (Lighting Design)
WINNER - Best Design
“In Macbeth (an undoing), Alex Berry’s array of fabulous costumes brought the production into the early 20th century, Tom Piper’s perspective-altering, mirrored flats showed the many sides of Lady Macbeth while the chiaroscuro effect of Lizzie Powell’s lighting gave the whole piece depth. It was the show in which, more than any other, the design helped create the tension, dynamism and rhythm of the whole piece.”
Thom Dibdin (AllEdinburghTheatre.com)
Image © Stuart Armitt
Tom Piper (Set Design) Alex Berry (Costume Design /Associate Set Designer) and Lizzie Powell (Lighting Design)
WINNER - Best Design
“In Macbeth (an undoing), Alex Berry’s array of fabulous costumes brought the production into the early 20th century, Tom Piper’s perspective-altering, mirrored flats showed the many sides of Lady Macbeth while the chiaroscuro effect of Lizzie Powell’s lighting gave the whole piece depth. It was the show in which, more than any other, the design helped create the tension, dynamism and rhythm of the whole piece.”
Thom Dibdin (AllEdinburghTheatre.com)
Image © Stuart Armitt
Fred Pommerehn, Ruben San Roman, Craig Fleming, Alberto Santos Bellido & Alison Brown
The Gift
(Capital Theatres and Barrowland Ballet (commissioned by Aberdeen Performing Arts, Capital Theatres and Eden Court))
Fred Pommerehn (Original Set Designer) Ruben San Roman (Adaption Set Designer), Craig Fleming (Original Lighting Designer) Alberto Santos Bellido (Adaption Lighting Designer) Alison Brown Costume Designer.
Image © Paul Campbell
(Capital Theatres and Barrowland Ballet (commissioned by Aberdeen Performing Arts, Capital Theatres and Eden Court))
Fred Pommerehn (Original Set Designer) Ruben San Roman (Adaption Set Designer), Craig Fleming (Original Lighting Designer) Alberto Santos Bellido (Adaption Lighting Designer) Alison Brown Costume Designer.
Image © Paul Campbell
Best Music & Sound
David Paul Jones
Love Beyond (Act of Remembrance)
(Raw Material and Vanishing Point)
WINNER - Best Music & Sound
“For Love Beyond, David Paul Jones created a score that was beautifully attuned to the show’s themes of love, loss and memory, and to the situation of the play’s protagonist Old Harry, who is deaf and suffering with dementia. It was absolutely central to a show that was in many ways a mood poem – the music leads us straight into the surges of thought and emotion in Harry’s mind that cannot be expressed in words.”
Anna Burnside (Daily Record/Sunday Mail)
Image © Tommy Ga Ken Wan
(Raw Material and Vanishing Point)
WINNER - Best Music & Sound
“For Love Beyond, David Paul Jones created a score that was beautifully attuned to the show’s themes of love, loss and memory, and to the situation of the play’s protagonist Old Harry, who is deaf and suffering with dementia. It was absolutely central to a show that was in many ways a mood poem – the music leads us straight into the surges of thought and emotion in Harry’s mind that cannot be expressed in words.”
Anna Burnside (Daily Record/Sunday Mail)
Image © Tommy Ga Ken Wan
Michael John McCarthy, Clare Hibberd & Isaac Savage
Kidnapped
(National Theatre of Scotland)
Michael John McCarthy (composer and music supervisor), Clare Hibberd (sound designer), Isaac Savage(performing musical director)
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
(National Theatre of Scotland)
Michael John McCarthy (composer and music supervisor), Clare Hibberd (sound designer), Isaac Savage(performing musical director)
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
John Pfumojena & Pippa Murphy
Enough of Him
(National Theatre of Scotland and Pitlochry Festival Theatre)
John Pfumojena (composer) and Pippa Murphy (sound designer)
Image © Sally Jubb
(National Theatre of Scotland and Pitlochry Festival Theatre)
John Pfumojena (composer) and Pippa Murphy (sound designer)
Image © Sally Jubb
Susan Bear & Simon ‘Simonotron’ Eilbeck
Ode to Joy (how Gordon got to go to the nasty pig party)
(Stories Untold/James Ley)
Susan Bear (sound designer) with Simon ‘Simonotron’ Eilbeck (DJ)
Image © Tommy Ga Ken Wan
(Stories Untold/James Ley)
Susan Bear (sound designer) with Simon ‘Simonotron’ Eilbeck (DJ)
Image © Tommy Ga Ken Wan
Best Technical Presentation
Love Beyond (Act of Remembrance)
(Raw Material and Vanishing Point)
WINNER - Best Technical Presentation
“Love Beyond (Act of Remembrance) combines tremendous depths of emotion with sheer technical brilliance to depict the themes of love, loss, dementia and communication. Brilliant acting, direction, writing and design were all brought together through the flawless technical execution of a beautifully poignant production that was far more than simple ‘smoke and mirrors’.”
Michael Cox (Across the Arts)
Image © Tommy Ga Ken Wan
WINNER - Best Technical Presentation
“Love Beyond (Act of Remembrance) combines tremendous depths of emotion with sheer technical brilliance to depict the themes of love, loss, dementia and communication. Brilliant acting, direction, writing and design were all brought together through the flawless technical execution of a beautifully poignant production that was far more than simple ‘smoke and mirrors’.”
Michael Cox (Across the Arts)
Image © Tommy Ga Ken Wan
Macbeth (an undoing)
(Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh)
Image © Stuart Armitt
Image © Stuart Armitt
Muster Station - Leith
(Grid Iron and Edinburgh International Festival)
Image © Jess Shurte
Image © Jess Shurte
The Fantastic Life of Minnie Rubinski
(Vision Mechanics)
Image © Vision Mechanics
Image © Vision Mechanics
Best Production for Children and Young People
Kissing Linford Christie
(Catherine Wheels)
Image © Amy Sinead
Image © Amy Sinead
Red Riding Hood
(Citizens Theatre at Tramway)
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Storm Lantern
(Strange Town)
Image © Andy Catlin
Image © Andy Catlin
The Gift
(Capital Theatres and Barrowland Ballet (commissioned by Aberdeen Performing Arts, Capital Theatres and Eden Court))
WINNER - Best Production for Children & Young People
“The Gift is an inspiring tale which ignites an earnest sense of playfulness, encouraging children, their families, and audiences to appreciate new ways of exploring imagination and creativity. A firm reminder from Barrowland Ballet and Capital Theatre of the value of imagination.”
Dominic Corr (Corr Blimey!)
© Andrew Perry
WINNER - Best Production for Children & Young People
“The Gift is an inspiring tale which ignites an earnest sense of playfulness, encouraging children, their families, and audiences to appreciate new ways of exploring imagination and creativity. A firm reminder from Barrowland Ballet and Capital Theatre of the value of imagination.”
Dominic Corr (Corr Blimey!)
© Andrew Perry
Best New Play
May Sumbwanyambe
Enough of Him
(National Theatre of Scotland and Pitlochry Festival Theatre)
WINNNER - Best New Play
“May Sumbwanyambe’s Enough of Him is an extraordinary piece about the African slave Joseph Knight and his famously successful bid to achieve his freedom through the Scottish courts. In the play, the Hell on Earth that was the slave colony of Jamaica crashes into the concocted gentility of the Scottish landowning classes. The drama imagines, with extraordinary power, the contorted racial, class and sexual politics that must have consumed Ballindean, the Perthshire mansion of Knight’s nominal ‘master’, the slave-plantation owner Sir John Wedderburn.”
Mark Brown (Sunday National and the Daily Telegraph)
Image © Sally Jubb
(National Theatre of Scotland and Pitlochry Festival Theatre)
WINNNER - Best New Play
“May Sumbwanyambe’s Enough of Him is an extraordinary piece about the African slave Joseph Knight and his famously successful bid to achieve his freedom through the Scottish courts. In the play, the Hell on Earth that was the slave colony of Jamaica crashes into the concocted gentility of the Scottish landowning classes. The drama imagines, with extraordinary power, the contorted racial, class and sexual politics that must have consumed Ballindean, the Perthshire mansion of Knight’s nominal ‘master’, the slave-plantation owner Sir John Wedderburn.”
Mark Brown (Sunday National and the Daily Telegraph)
Image © Sally Jubb
Ramesh Meyyappan and the company
Love Beyond (Act of Remembrance)
(Raw Material and Vanishing Point)
Image © Tommy Ga Ken Wan
(Raw Material and Vanishing Point)
Image © Tommy Ga Ken Wan
James Ley
Ode to Joy (how Gordon got to go to the nasty pig party)
(Stories Untold/James Ley)
Image © Tommy Ga Ken Wan
(Stories Untold/James Ley)
Image © Tommy Ga Ken Wan
Tim Crouch
Truth’s a Dog Must to Kennel
(Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh)
Image © Royal Lyceum Theatre
(Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh)
Image © Royal Lyceum Theatre
Best Production
Enough of Him
(National Theatre of Scotland and Pitlochry Festival Theatre)
WINNER - Best Production
“Enough Of Him was a stunningly powerful and beautifully realised show, with a magnificent text by May Sumbwanyambe, which made – and I hope will continue to make – a vital contribution to the evolving debate about Scotland’s historic involvement with the slave trade. In a magnificently detailed and beautifully paced production by Orla O’Loughlin, it explored these themes through the relationship between the enslaved man, Joseph Knight, and Sir John Wedderburn, who brought Knight back to Scotland as a servant at his Perthshire estate, and treated him as a favourite. The show was co-produced by Pitlochry Festival Theatre and the National Theatre of Scotland, and featured superb design and music, as well as outstanding performances from Omar Austin and Matthew Pidgeon, as two men whose fractured and unequal relationship bears witness to the horror of slavery, and the damage and distortion it has inflicted, down the generations, on those whose lives were shaped by it.”
Joyce McMillan (The Scotsman)
Image © Sally Jubb
WINNER - Best Production
“Enough Of Him was a stunningly powerful and beautifully realised show, with a magnificent text by May Sumbwanyambe, which made – and I hope will continue to make – a vital contribution to the evolving debate about Scotland’s historic involvement with the slave trade. In a magnificently detailed and beautifully paced production by Orla O’Loughlin, it explored these themes through the relationship between the enslaved man, Joseph Knight, and Sir John Wedderburn, who brought Knight back to Scotland as a servant at his Perthshire estate, and treated him as a favourite. The show was co-produced by Pitlochry Festival Theatre and the National Theatre of Scotland, and featured superb design and music, as well as outstanding performances from Omar Austin and Matthew Pidgeon, as two men whose fractured and unequal relationship bears witness to the horror of slavery, and the damage and distortion it has inflicted, down the generations, on those whose lives were shaped by it.”
Joyce McMillan (The Scotsman)
Image © Sally Jubb
Kidnapped
(National Theatre of Scotland)
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Macbeth (an undoing)
(Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh)
Image © Stuart Armitt
Image © Stuart Armitt
Truth’s a Dog Must to Kennel
(Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh)
Image © Amy Gibson
Image © Amy Gibson
The CATS judging panel for the 2023 Awards comprised: Mary Brennan (The Herald), Mark Brown (Sunday National and the Daily Telegraph), Anna Burnside (Daily Record/Sunday Mail), Dominic Corr (Corr Blimey!), Michael Cox (Across the Arts), Thom Dibdin (AllEdinburghTheatre.com), Mark Fisher (The Guardian), Fergus Morgan (The Stage), Joyce McMillan (The Scotsman), Natalie O’Donoghue (Broadway World), David Pollock (freelance reviewer) and Allan Radcliffe (The Times)
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