Evening Standard Awards take place on 25 Nov, Corden presents

Corden also won a 2012 Whatsonstage.com
Award – which are voted for entirely by the public – for the
same role.

The 2012 Evening Standard Awards will be co-hosted by the newspaper’s Russian owner, Evgeny Lebedev, awards sponsor Burberry’s chief creative officer Christopher Bailey and American Vogue editor Anna Wintour.

This year awards will include The Lebedev Special Award, which can be awarded to “a writer, performer, director or institution for a specific piece of work or as a lifetime achievement award”, and The Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright.

Named in memory of the former editor of the Evening Standard, it comes with cheques of £3,000 for the winner, and £1,000 for each of those shortlisted.

In partnership with its new sponsor, it is also launching The Burberry Award for Emerging Director. Standard editor Sarah Sands said: “We are hugely excited about this new
partnership with Burberry and look forward to celebrating the fantastic
theatre talent for which London is internationally renowned.”

Last year’s winners included Jonny Lee Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch, who shared Best Actor for Frankenstein, and Sheridan Smith, who won Best Actress for Flare Path.

A panel of theatre critics (Henry Hitchings, Georgina Brown, Susannah Clapp, Libby Purves, Charles Spencer and Matt Wolf), as well as Sands will choose this year’s winners.

James Corden has plenty of hosting experience, having presented the Brit Awards and the Whatsonstage.com Awards previously. He caused a stir when he famously snogged Daniel Radcliffe on stage during the 2008 Whatsonstage.com Awards.