Gender-swapping musical Company wins big at the Olivier Awards

Also celebrating big wins are Come From Away, the musical about a Canadian town suddenly inundated with stranded airplane passengers on 9/11, and The Inheritance, a new play about love between gay men in New York a generation after the AIDS epidemic. They took home four gongs each.

• Company at the Gielguld: A flawless revival of Stephen Sondheim's musical ★★★★★
• When are the Olivier Awards 2019? Who is nominated and how can I watch?
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Company has earned rave reviews with a gender-swapped production starring Patti LuPone, Rosalie Craig and Jonathan Bailey. Originally written in the 1970s, this version swaps the male role of Bobby to a female character Bobbie, and creates a same-sex couple by converting Amy into Jamie.

Accepting the award for best musical revival, the show's director Marianne Elliott explained her company's "main goal was to put female stories front and centre on our stages."

She added: "Celebrating female stories was not only possible but absolutely vital and the most outstanding thing about doing this show was that our audience seemed to believe that too."

The drama was nominated in nine categories, and took home awards for Best Musical Revival, Best Supporting Actor in a Musical, Best Supporting Actress in a Musical, and Best Set Design.

Come From Away won four awards including Best New Musical, while The Inheritance's four gongs included for Best New Play.

Olivier winners also included Monica Dolan for All About Eve and Kobna Holdbrook-Smith for his role as Ike Turner in Tina: The Musical, and the plays Home, I'm Darling, Summer and Smoke, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, and A Monster Calls.