Screen star Cush Jumbo returns to stage as our theatre awards presenter
THE Good Fight star Cush Jumbo will present this year’s Evening Standard Theatre Awards.
She will join the newspaper’s proprietor, Evgeny Lebedev, and his regular co-host, American Vogue editor-in-chief Dame Anna Wintour, at the London Coliseum on November 24. Damian Lewis and Helen McCrory are also co-hosts.
Jumbo, from south London, plays lawyer Lucca Quinn in the TV show. She is returning to the event six years after she won the emerging talent award for Josephine And I, her one-woman show about dancer and civil rights activist Josephine Baker.
The actress, who will play Hamlet at the Young Vic next year, said she was honoured to take on the role from Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who has presented for the past two years.
Jumbo said: “The Standard awards always feel really emotive to me; when I’m in that room I’ve always felt like I’m in the company of my family, even when I was an unknown person. And being a Londoner, the Standard has always been in my life.”
Husband-and-wife acting stars Lewis and McCrory, who met when cast in a play together at the Almeida, are mainstays of the London stage. They are also known for hit TV shows Billions and Peaky Blinders.
Mr Lebedev said: “For its 65 th year, the Evening Standard Theatre Awards continues to recognise and celebrate London’s extraordinary talent from playwrights, directors and actors to everyone who works so hard behind the scenes.
“With the London Coliseum providing the new backdrop for the ceremony, it is a great pleasure that I will be hosting the event with Anna, Cush, Damian and Helen.” Dame Anna said: “London’s theatre scene continues to thrive, and I am so thrilled to be co-hosting the Evening Standard Theatre Awards again with Evgeny, Cush, Damian and Helen celebrating the talent for their outstanding achievements in London theatre”.
Honours handed out at the event, held in association with Michael Kors, include the Charles Wintour award for most promising playwright, named after Dame Anna’s late father, who edited the Standard in the Sixties and Seventies.
The award for best director is named after the Standard’s former theatre critic Milton Shulman.
The National Theatre triumphed last year, with Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo taking the top acting prizes for their roles in Antony And Cleopatra. Other past winners include Dame Judi Dench, Glenda Jackson, Sir Ian McKellen, Fiona Shaw, Benedict Cumberbatch, Gillian Anderson and Glenn Close.
● The 65th Evening Standard Theatre Awards, in association with Michael Kors, take place on November 24. standard.co.uk/theatreawards #ESTheatreAwards