Sarah Snook wins prestigious Oliver Award playing 26 roles in one show

Australian actress Sarah Snook is going to need a bigger trophy cabinet after claiming a major gong in London.

Brilliant Australian actress Sarah Snook has won a prestigious Olivier Award for her acclaimed performance in the Australian production of The Picture Of Dorian Gray in London’s famed West End.

The Succession star played all 26 roles in the acclaimed play and won the Best Actress award from an esteemed cast of fellow nominees including Sarah Jessica Parker who stars in Plaza Suite.

The Oliver Award adds to her haul of Golden Globe, Emmy and Critics Choice gongs for playing Shiv Roy in Succession.

Aussie actor Sarah Snook won the Best Actress award for the London production of The Picture Of Dorian Gray. Picture: Getty

‘It’s an incredible honour to be on the stage in the West End and this is not something that I thought would come along with that. It’s billed as a one-woman show but it’s not,” she said at the Royal Albert Hall ceremony.

“It’s the crew who are on stage with me all the time every night, and they are a vital and constant support and inspiration.”

The production’s designer Marg Horwell also won Best Costume Design for her work on the Sydney Theatre Company’s adaptation of the Oscar Wilde work.

Horwell said Snook’s blinding talent on display in the one-hander play, which was co-produced in the West End by Australian promoter Michael Cassel Group, made her job “incredibly easy.”

“It makes your job incredibly easy when every single character is played by Sarah Snook. It’s been a joy making the show with you,” Horwell said.

Snook with her Best Actress award on stage at the Olivier Awards 2024 at The Royal Albert Hall. Picture: Getty

Snook also paid tribute to the STC’s outgoing creative director Kip Williams, whose innovative take on the famous novel has thrilled audiences in Australia and now in the UK, where the play will run until May 11.

“A huge immeasurable thank you to Kip Williams and your very big brain, and your specificity and precision and your inspiration — and I just thank my lucky stars I get to play inside that mad world you’ve created every night,” Snook said at the Olivier Awards.

Snook’s turn as the play’s solo star, taking on the role from Eryn Jean Norvill who also wowed audiences during its Australian run, marked her return to the London stage following her searing debut in Matthew Warchus’ 2016 production of The Master Builder opposite Ralph Fiennes.

Other winners at the 2024 Olivier Awards included pop star Nicole Scherzinger who claimed Best Actress in a Musical for her role as Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard.