The winners of the 2023 Olivier Awards were announced yesterday (2 April 2023) at a ceremony at London's Royal Albert Hall, with Nick Hern Books titles taking the triple-whammy of Best New Play, Best New Musical and Outstanding Achievement in Affiliate Theatre.

Best New Play was awarded to Prima Facie, Suzie Miller's searingly powerful one-woman show about an ambitious female lawyer confronting patriarchal power. The play was a sensation in its West End production starring Jodie Comer, who took the Best Actress award at last night's ceremony.

Best New Musical went to Chris Bush and Richard Hawley's Standing at the Sky's Edge, a gorgeous celebration of community seen through the lives of successive generations of residents of a Sheffield estate. It also took the award for Best original score or new orchestrations, in recognition of Richard Hawley and Tom Deering's work.

The Outstanding Achievement in Affiliate Theatre award went to The P Word, Waleed Akhtar's sharp-witted play about the parallel lives of two gay Pakistani men. The play premiered at the Bush Theatre in 2022, and was described as 'heart-meltingly lovely' (Time Out), a 'tremendous two-man rom-com' (The Times).

Akhtar's play beat off stiff competition from four other plays in its category, all of them published by Nick Hern Books: Haley McGee's Age is a Feeling; Joe White's Blackout Songs; Margaret Perry's Paradise Now! and Sami Ibrahim's two palestinians go dogging.

Congratulations to all the winners!