# Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actor

The Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actor is an annual award presented since 1955 by the Evening Standard in recognition of achievement in British theatre. Richard Burton was the inaugural winner of the award. The most recent recipient is Andrew Scott.
Simon Russell Beale has won the award the most frequently, with four separate wins. Albert Finney, Ian Holm, Alec McCowen, Laurence Olivier, and Paul Scofield have each won the award thrice, while thirteen other actors have won twice. Chiwetel Ejiofor was the first black actor to win, and Adrian Lester was the second. Two instances have occurred where two actors have been awarded as winners from the same play: In 2011, Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller from Frankenstein; and again in 2013, Rory Kinnear and Lester from Othello. 2001 was the first year in which additional runner-ups/nominees were recognized, rather than just the winners as in all the years' prior.

## Winners and nominees
### 1950s

| Year | Actor | Work | Character |
| 1955 |
| 1955 | Richard Burton | Henry V | Henry V |
| 1956 |
| 1956 | Paul Scofield | The Power and the Glory | The Priest |
| 1957 |
| 1957 | Laurence Olivier | The Entertainer | Archie Rice |
| 1958 |
| 1958 | Michael Redgrave | A Touch of the Sun | Philip Lester |
| 1959 |
| 1959 | Eric Porter | Rosmersholm | John Rosmer |

### 1960s

| Year | Actor | Work | Character |
| 1960 |
| 1960 | Alec Guinness | Ross | T. E. Lawrence |
| 1960 | Rex Harrison | Platonov | Mikhail Platonov |
| 1961 |
| 1961 | Christopher Plummer | Becket | Henry II |
| 1962 |
| 1962 | Paul Scofield | King Lear | King Lear |
| 1963 |
| 1963 | Michael Redgrave | Uncle Vanya | Uncle Vanya |
| 1964 |
| 1964 | Nicol Williamson | Inadmissible Evidence | Bill Maitland |
| 1965 |
| 1965 | Ian Holm | Henry V | Henry V |
| 1966 |
| 1966 | Albert Finney | A Flea in Her Ear | Victor Emmanuel Chandebise |
| 1967 |
| 1967 | Laurence Olivier | Dance of Death | Edgar |
| 1968 |
| 1968 | Alec McCowen | Hadrian VII | Frederick Rolfe |
| 1969 |
| 1969 | Nicol Williamson | Hamlet | Hamlet |

### 1970s

| Year | Actor | Work | Character |
| 1970 |
| 1970 | John Gielgud | Home | Harry |
| 1970 | Ralph Richardson | Home | Jack |
| 1971 |
| 1971 | Alan Bates | Butley | Ben Butley |
| 1972 |
| 1972 | Laurence Olivier | Long Day's Journey into Night | James Tyrone |
| 1973 |
| 1973 | Alec McCowen | The Misanthrope | Alceste |
| 1974 |
| 1974 | John Wood | Travesties | Henry Carr |
| 1975 |
| 1975 | John Gielgud | No Man's Land | Spooner |
| 1976 |
| 1976 | Albert Finney | Tamburlaine the Great | Tamburlaine |
| 1977 |
| 1977 | Donald Sinden | King Lear | King Lear |
| 1978 |
| 1978 | Alan Howard | Coriolanus | Coriolanus |
| 1979 |
| 1979 | Warren Mitchell | Death of a Salesman | Willy Loman |

### 1980s

| Year | Actor | Work | Character |
| 1980 |
| 1980 | Tom Courtenay | The Dresser | Norman |
| 1981 |
| 1981 | Alan Howard | Good | John Halder |
| 1982 |
| 1982 | Alec McCowen | The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H. | Adolf Hitler |
| 1983 |
| 1983 | Derek Jacobi | Much Ado About Nothing | Benedick |
| 1984 |
| 1984 | Ian McKellen | Coriolanus | Coriolanus |
| 1985 |
| 1985 | Antony Sher | Richard III | Richard III |
| 1986 |
| 1986 | Albert Finney | Orphans | Harold |
| 1987 |
| 1987 | Michael Gambon | A View from the Bridge | Eddie Carbone |
| 1988 |
| 1988 | Eric Porter | Cat on a Hot Tin Roof | Big Daddy |
| 1989 |
| 1989 | Ian McKellen | Othello | Iago |

### 1990s

| Year | Actor | Work | Character |
| 1990 |
| 1990 | Richard Harris | Henry IV | Henry IV |
| 1991 |
| 1991 | John Wood | King Lear | King Lear |
| 1992 |
| 1992 | Nigel Hawthorne | The Madness of George III | George III |
| 1993 |
| 1993 | Ian Holm | Moonlight | Andy |
| 1994 |
| 1994 | Tom Courtenay | Moscow Stations | Venichka Yerofeev |
| 1995 |
| 1995 | Michael Gambon | Volpone | Volpone |
| 1996 |
| 1996 | Paul Scofield | John Gabriel Borkman | John Gabriel Borkman |
| 1997 |
| 1997 | Ian Holm | King Lear | King Lear |
| 1998 |
| 1998 | Kevin Spacey | The Iceman Cometh | Theodore "Hickey" Hickman |
| 1999 |
| 1999 | Stephen Dillane | The Real Thing | Henry |

### 2000s

| Year | Actor | Work | Character |
| 2000 |
| 2000 | Simon Russell Beale | Hamlet | Prince Hamlet |
| 2001 |
| 2001 | Alex Jennings | The Relapse and The Winter's Tale | Lord Foppington and Leontes |
| 2001 | William Houston | Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2 and Henry V | Prince Hal and Henry V |
| 2001 | Alan Rickman | Private Lives | Elyot Chase |
| 2002 |
| 2002 | Simon Russell Beale | Twelfth Night and Uncle Vanya | Malvolio and Uncle Vanya |
| 2002 | Daniel Craig | A Number | Bernard 1, Bernard 2, and Michael Black |
| 2002 | Tom Georgeson | Frozen | Ralph Wantage |
| 2003 |
| 2003 | Michael Sheen | Caligula | Caligula |
| 2003 | Kenneth Branagh | Edmond | Edmond Burke |
| 2003 | Warren Mitchell | The Price | Gregory Solomon |
| 2004 |
| 2004 | Richard Griffiths | The History Boys | Douglas Hector |
| 2004 | Douglas Hodge | Dumb Show | Barry |
| 2004 | Stanley Townsend | Shining City | John |
| 2005 |
| 2005 | Simon Russell Beale | The Philanthropist | Philip |
| 2005 | Brian Dennehy | Death of a Salesman | Willy Loman |
| 2005 | Derek Jacobi | Don Carlos | Philip II of Spain |
| 2006 |
| 2006 | Rufus Sewell | Rock 'n' Roll | Jan |
| 2006 | Bill Irwin | Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? | George |
| 2006 | Michael Sheen | Frost/Nixon | David Frost |
| 2006 | Kevin Spacey | A Moon for the Misbegotten | Jim Tyrone |
| 2007 |
| 2007 | Patrick Stewart | Macbeth | Macbeth |
| 2007 | Charles Dance | Shadowlands | C.S. Lewis |
| 2007 | Robert Lindsay | The Entertainer | Archie Rice |
| 2007 | Mark Rylance | Boeing Boeing | Robert |
| 2008 |
| 2008 | Chiwetel Ejiofor | Othello | Othello |
| 2008 | Kenneth Branagh | Ivanov | Ivanov |
| 2008 | David Calder | King Lear | King Lear |
| 2009 |
| 2009 | Mark Rylance | Jerusalem | Johnny "Rooster" Byron |
| 2009 | Simon Russell Beale | The Winter's Tale | Leontes |
| 2009 | Ken Stott | A View from the Bridge | Eddie Carbone |
| 2009 | Samuel West | ENRON | Jeffrey Skilling |

### 2010s

| Year | Actor | Work | Character |
| 2010 |
| 2010 | Rory Kinnear | Hamlet and Measure For Measure | Hamlet and Angelo |
| 2010 | Roger Allam | Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2 | Falstaff |
| 2010 | David Suchet | All My Sons | Joe Keller |
| 2011 |
| 2011 | Benedict Cumberbatch | Frankenstein | The Creature / Victor Frankenstein |
| 2011 | Jonny Lee Miller | Frankenstein | The Creature / Victor Frankenstein |
| 2011 | Bertie Carvel | Matilda the Musical | Miss Trunchbull |
| 2011 | Charles Edwards | Much Ado About Nothing | Benedick |
| 2012 |
| 2012 | Simon Russell Beale | Collaborators | Joseph Stalin |
| 2012 | Charles Edwards | The King's Speech and This House | George VI and Jack Weatherill |
| 2012 | Adrian Lester | Red Velvet | Ira Aldridge |
| 2012 | Luke Treadaway | The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time | Christopher Boone |
| 2013 |
| 2013 | Rory Kinnear | Othello | Iago |
| 2013 | Adrian Lester | Othello | Othello |
| 2013 | Chiwetel Ejiofor | A Season in the Congo | Patrice Lumumba |
| 2014 |
| 2014 | Tom Hiddleston | Coriolanus | Coriolanus |
| 2014 | Ben Miles | Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies | Thomas Cromwell |
| 2014 | Mark Strong | A View from the Bridge | Eddie Carbone |
| 2015 |
| 2015 | James McAvoy | The Ruling Class | Jack Gurney |
| 2015 | Kenneth Cranham | The Father | Andre |
| 2015 | Ralph Fiennes | Man and Superman | Jack Tanner |
| 2015 | Simon Russell Beale | Temple | The Dean |
| 2016 |
| 2016 | Ralph Fiennes | The Master Builder and Richard III | Halvard Solness and Richard III |
| 2016 | Kenneth Branagh | The Entertainer | Archie Rice |
| 2016 | O. T. Fagbenle | Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom | Levee |
| 2016 | James McArdle | Platonov | Mikhail Platonov |
| 2016 | Ian McKellen | No Man's Land | Spooner |
| 2017 |
| 2017 | Andrew Garfield | Angels in America | Prior Walter |
| 2017 | Bertie Carvel | Ink | Rupert Murdoch |
| 2017 | Andrew Scott | Hamlet | Hamlet |
| 2018 |
| 2018 | Ralph Fiennes | Antony and Cleopatra | Mark Antony |
| 2018 | Bryan Cranston | Network | Howard Beale |
| 2018 | Ian McKellen | King Lear | King Lear |
| 2018 | Colin Morgan | Translations | Owen |
| 2018 | Kyle Soller | The Inheritance | Eric Glass |
| 2019 |
| 2019 | Andrew Scott | Present Laughter | Garry Essendine |
| 2019 | K. Todd Freeman | Downstate | Dee |
| 2019 | Francis Guinan | Downstate | Fred |
| 2019 | Tom Hiddleston | Betrayal | Robert |
| 2019 | Wendell Pierce | Death of a Salesman | Willy Loman |

### 2020s

| Year | Actor | Work | Character |
| 2022 |
| 2022 | James McAvoy | Cyrano de Bergerac | Cyrano |
| 2022 | Paapa Essiedu | A Number | Various |
| 2022 | Shubham Saraf | The Father and the Assassin | Nathuram Godse |
| 2022 | Lennie James | A Number | Salter |
| 2022 | Giles Terera | Blues for an Alabama Sky | Guy Jacobs |
| 2023 |
| 2023 | Andrew Scott | Vanya | Various |
| 2023 | Paapa Essiedu | The Effect | Tristan |
| 2023 | Mark Gatiss | The Motive and the Cue | Sir John Gielgud |
| 2023 | Paul Mescal | A Streetcar Named Desire | Stanley Kowalski |