Winners announced for the 26th Annual WhatsOnStage Awards

The event, hosted by Gina and Mazz Murray, took to the stage at the London Palladium on 8 March 2026.

The West End’s hottest new musical Paddington The Musical triumphed at the ceremony, winning nine awards. The production won Best New Musical; Best Professional Debut Performance for Timi Akinyosade; Best Direction for Luke Sheppard; Best Set Design for Tom Pye; Best Costume Design for Gabriella Slade and Tahra Zafar - the latter, who designed the bear; Best Sound Design for Gareth Owen; Best Wigs, Hair and Make-Up Design for Campbell Young Associates; Best Musical Supervision/Direction for Matt Brind; and Best Casting Direction for Natalie Gallacher CDG for Pippa Ailion and Natalie Gallacher Casting, Nick Hockaday and Annabelle Davis.

Last summer’s smash-hit revival of Evita took home five awards for Best Musical Revival, Best Choreography for Fabian Aloise, Best Lighting for Jon Clark, Best Video Design for Jamie Lloyd, Nick Ward and David Anderson, and Rachel Zegler winning Best Performer in a Musical. Zegler also won the Best Concert Event for Rachel Zegler: Live at The London Palladium.

With the year very much dominated by the big musicals, Richard II at Bridge Theatre leads the straight play categories with two wins - Jonathan Bailey won Best Performer in a Play and the production, Best Play Revival. Taking the Best New Play Award are WhatsOnStage Award favourites Mischief for The Comedy About Spies by Henry Lewis and Henry Shields.

Completing the performance categories, Amber Davies wins Best Supporting Performer in a Musical, taking the only win for The Great Gatsby; Stephen Fry wins Best Supporting Performer in a Play for The Importance of Being Earnest, again the only win for the multi-nominated production; and Emma Kingston takes Best Takeover for Elphaba in Wicked.

Crowning its 40th year, Les Misérables, the West End’s longest-running musical, wins the coveted Best West End Show Award. Best Regional Production went to 13 Going on 30 The Musical at the Opera House in Manchester, with the Hope Mill’s production of Young Frankenstein taking Best Studio Production.

This year, the awards introduced a new category, Best Child Performance, in association with Go Live Theatre. It was won by The Land of the Living at the National Theatre - Young Thomas: Platon Filatov, Darcy Tosun, Anton Vehring, and Artie Wilkinson-Hunt.

Completing the evening, James Graham was awarded the AudienceView Services to UK Theatre Award – last year alone his much-heralded new play Punch played to acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic, Boys From the Blackstuff was staged at Liverpool Royal Court and National Theatre, Make It Happen debuted at Dundee Rep and Edinburgh International Festival, and a TV adaptation of his acclaimed play Dear England was in production at the BBC.

The evening also offered a variety of exclusive live performances from big shows such as 13 Going on 30 the Musical, Disney’s Hercules and Paddington the Musical. We also found out who the lead cast were for the upcoming UK non-replica production of High School Musical, which makes its debut at The Lowry later this year.