Nicola Walker has won the Best Actress in a Supporting Role Olivier Award for her performance in The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time at the National Theatre.
The first time Olivier Award winner receives the accolade for her remarkable performance as the mother of a possibly autistic child, which she originated when Simon Stephens’ stage adaptation of the best-selling novel made its world premiere last year at the South Bank venue’s Cottesloe theatre.
The actress, who is arguably best known to the public for her long-running role in BBC drama Spooks and other screen credits including Scott And Bailey, Last Tango In Halifax and Heading Out, was hailed for her unsentimental yet powerful portrayal of a woman struggling with the cards life has dealt her when the show opened to the press last August.
Her role in the innovative Marianne Elliott-directed drama followed a string of appearances at the National Theatre including Season’s Greetings, Gethsemane, Tales From The Vienna Woods, Edmond and Free.
Speaking backstage after collecting her award, Walker described the thrill of developing the production at the National Theatre, saying: “We did a week’s workshop before we started rehearsing and Marianne Elliott and Scott Graham from Frantic Assembly said ‘Look, we don’t know how we’re going to do this, we don’t know what physical language we’re going to use, we’re just going to play with that for a week’. And my Dad picked me up in the car after that week and I said to him ‘I’ve just done the best week’s work I’ve ever done in my life!’ Because they just didn’t stop having ideas and they kept asking you to do things you’d never done before, and it was really exciting.”
Walker triumphs in the category over fellow nominees Anastasia Hille (The Effect), Cush Jumbo (Julius Caesar), Helen McCrory (The Last Of The Haussmans), and Janie Dee (NSFW).
