Critics Award for Theatre in Scotland Announce 2025 Shortlists

Mother Goose at Gaiety Theatre, Ayr; Peter Pan at Glasgow’s King’s Theatre; A Christmas Carol at Brunton, East Lothian; and Ya Wee Dickie McWittington at King’s Kirkcaldy have been nominated for the first Outstanding Pantomime award it was revealed today as the shortlists for the 2025 Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland were announced.

“The new Outstanding Pantomime award was, not surprisingly, hotly contested with productions from across the length and breadth of the country being considered,” says CATS co-convenor Mark Brown. “The shortlist reflects the ambition of all the productions from Glasgow’s King’s Theatre to the King’s Kirkcaldy, the Gaiety Theatre, Ayr and Brunton East Lothian, where the show certainly did go on transferring to Loretto theatre after the Brunton theatre’s enforced closure due to the discovery of RAAC.”

Heading the overall nominations this year is Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey the international co-production between Scotland’s Vanishing Point and Kanagawa Arts Theatre of Japan (in association with Tramway) based on short stories by the acclaimed author Haruki Murakami. The production was shortlisted in seven categories: Best Design, Best Director (Matthew Lenton), Best Ensemble, Best use of Sound and Music, Best Technical Presentation, Best Production and Outstanding Performance (Sandy Grierson as the eponymous monkey).

The Scottish premiere at Tron Theatre of Radiant Vermin - Philip Ridley’s wickedly comic satire about a young couple offered a ‘too-good-to-be-true’ way onto the property ladder - is shortlisted in four categories: Best Ensemble, Best Design, Best Technical and Best Production. Also shortlisted in four categories – namely, Outstanding Performance (Dawn Sievewright), Best Music and Sound, Best Technical Presentation and Best Production - is Wild Rose, Nicole Taylor’s theatrical adaptation of the acclaimed 2018 film (for which she wrote the screenplay). The acclaimed musical, which was directed by John Tiffany, premiered at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh in March.

June Carter Cash: The Woman, Her Music and Me, The National Theatre of Scotland and Grid Iron Theatre’s co-production about the acclaimed country artist (who was also Johnny Cash’s second wife), is nominated in three categories: Outstanding Performance (Charlene Boyd as June Carter Cash), Best Ensemble and Best New Play. Also on three nominations are: Hedda Gabler - a new version of Ibsen’s classic by Kathy McKean staged at Bard in the Botanics – which receives nominations for Outstanding Performance (Nicole Cooper as Hedda), Best Director(Gordon Barr) and Best Production; and Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s production of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, which is shortlisted in the categories of Outstanding Performance(Kirsty Findlay as Carole King), Best Sound and Music, and Best Technical Presentation.

Last year’s winner of the Best Director award, Joanna Bowman, is nominated once again, this year for Doubt: A Parable at Dundee Rep. She is joined by Bard in the Botanics Artistic Director, Gordon Barr (Hedda Gabler), Matthew Lenton, Artistic Director of Vanishing Point (Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey) and Andrew Panton, Artistic Director of Dundee Rep (A History of Paper).

The five productions in the frame for the supreme award, Best Production are: Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey, Hedda Gabler, Radiant Vermin, Wild Rose and Doubt: A Parable.

“This has been another fantastic year for theatre produced in Scotland with around 140 shows eligible for the awards,” says CATS co-convenor, Joyce McMillan. “No fewer than 25 different productions have been shortlisted reflecting the calibre of the work being staged across Scotland, from new interpretations of the classics to vibrant musicals and ground-breaking new plays, and not forgetting pantomime.”

“Scotland’s place on the international stage is also underlined this year as Scotland-based Vanishing Point and its co-producer Kanagawa Arts Theatre head the shortlists being recognised in no fewer than seven categories,” she adds.

Scotland continues to excel in commissioning and staging new writing. This year how many (Thom) plays were produced.

“New plays are the life blood of theatre,” says Michael Cox, CATS co-convenor. “Once again we have had a year of tremendous new writing with new plays being represented across many of the award categories.”

The 2025 Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland are generously supported by:

Theatre Studies, University of Glasgow (Outstanding Performance awards), Equity (Best Ensemble), BECTU (Best Technical Presentation), Nick Hern Books (Best New Play), BB Hair Collective (Best Design), Gilded Balloon (Best Production for Children and Young People), Mackie’s (Outstanding Pantomime) and also by BBC Scotland Radio Drama.

The 2025 Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland will be presented on the afternoon of Sunday June 8 at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh.

Tickets for the CATS awards, priced £21 including a glass of fizz, canapes and a tub of Mackie’s ice cream, are available via https://www.traverse.co.uk/about-us/your-visit/box-office

For the first time, this year, people can also sign up via the Box Office to become “Friends of the CATS”. For £100, Friends will receive two tickets to the award ceremony, a credit in the event programme and ceremony audiovisual presentation, and further benefits to be announced as this new scheme develops.”  

Get Broadway News on WhatsApp

Receive the latest updates, breaking news, and exclusive coverage from Broadway directly in WhatsApp.