Birmingham Rep's Sweeney Todd wins at the UK Theatre Awards

Birmingham Rep's production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street has won at the UK Theatre Awards, which celebrate the best of theatre across the country outside London's West End.

The Rep's version of Stephen Sondheim's musical thriller beat co-productions of Calendar Girls The Musical, The High Life and Kiss of the Spider Woman in its category at the ceremony, held at 8 Northumberland Avenue in London on Monday.

Other Birmingham nominees

Birmingham Hippodrome's production of No Such Thing As Wolves was also shortlisted, as was Small Island, a co-production between Leeds Playhouse, Birmingham Rep and Nottingham Playhouse.

The acting winners

• Adrian Lester, for Cyrano de Bergerac at the Royal Shakespeare Company
• Julianne Pundan, for Miss Saigon
• Gloria Obianyo, for As You Like It at Theatre Royal Bath

Other winners

• Best new play: The Last Stand of Mrs Mary Whitehouse, a Nottingham Playhouse co-production
• Our Town, a Welsh National Theatre and Rose Theatre co-production
• Best director: Tom Littler, for Love's Labour's Lost and Much Ado About Nothing
• Design: Ceci Calf, for The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher at Liverpool's Everyman and Playhouse
• Beauty and the Beast at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow
• English Touring Opera, for the ambition and breadth of its programming

Special awards

Jodie Comer received the first Outstanding Achievement in British Theatre award, following the national tour of Prima Facie. The Outstanding Contribution to British Theatre award was presented posthumously to the producer Alan Finch, and collected by his family.

A boost for the Rep

The win comes at an important time for the Rep. Its 800-seat main auditorium is due to close from March to November next year while concrete in its roof is removed, with the theatre continuing to stage shows in its smaller Studio during the work.

The Rep is one of Britain's oldest producing theatres, founded in 1913, and has a long record of staging major musicals as well as new writing. Its productions regularly transfer to London and tour the country.

The UK Theatre Awards are presented by UK Theatre, the body representing theatres and performing arts organisations, and celebrate theatre made across the regions and nations of the UK.

About the show

Sweeney Todd, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by Hugh Wheeler, opened on Broadway in 1979. It tells the story of a barber who returns to Victorian London to take revenge on the judge who wrongly transported him, and of Mrs Lovett, whose pie shop becomes part of his grisly plan. It is one of the most demanding musicals to stage, with a large cast, a full orchestral score and a dark sense of humour.

For Birmingham's theatres, which also include the Hippodrome, the Alexandra and the Old Rep, the awards are a reminder of how much of the country's best work is made outside London.