Here’s a brief walk down memory lane ahead of the awards this Sunday
Benedict Cumberbatch acceptance speech
Congratulations to Benedict Cumberbatch who has won the WhatsOnStage Award for Best Actor in a Play for his performance in Hamlet. #WOSAwards
Posted by WhatsOnStage on Sunday, February 21, 2016
At last year's awards the great Sherlock actor took home Best Actor in a Play Award for his performance in Hamlet. Though he couldn't be there, he recorded the best – and possibly lengthiest – speech ever made. It was lovely.
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In 2008 Daniel Radcliffe won Newcomer of the Year for his role in Equus but it's fair to say he was caught slightly off-guard by host James Corden, who proceeded to snog the man as he stepped up to accept his award. "I had visions of Britney and Madonna", said Daniel. Indeed.
It's guaranteed to be a good moment if Barry Humphries is part of it. But in 2014, the creative force behind Dame Edna provided one of the best speeches of the night. When accepting the award for Best Solo Performance for Eat Pray Laugh! he said: "It's so wonderful to be a solo performer, because then you have no one to thank".
Host, winner, James Corden has played all sorts of roles at the WhatsOnStage Awards. It was in 2012, however, when accepting the Best Actor in a Play Award for One Man, Two Guvnors when he made us properly giggle. Running up to the stage in jeans and a jumper, he looked, shall we say, a little out of place. "I didn't get the email about the clothes!"
Everyone loved Nicole Kidman in new play Photograph 51 which is no doubt why she was voted winner of the Best Actress in a Play award in 2016. But though she's a Hollywood A-lister, the play had finished and she'd headed off back home to America, she still turned up. She flew all the way from her home in Tennessee to accept it. What a legend.