The Laurence Olivier awards 2011 – in pictures

Presenting at this year's awards were actors Jonny Lee Miller (left) and Benedict Cumberbatch, currently co-starring in Frankenstein at the National Theatre
Photograph: Dave M. Benett/Getty Images

Tamsin Greig pauses on the red carpet outside the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, the venue for this year's awards Photograph: Ian Gavan/Getty Images

Rupert Everett and Kara Tointon arriving. Everett later presented an award Photograph: Ian West/PA

Amanda Holden arrives at the awards. She later presented one of the prizes Photograph: Ian West/PA

Actress Sheridan Smith and her father Colin on the red carpet beforehand. Smith's sparky turn in Legally Blonde scooped her the award for best actress in a musical. Speaking from the podium in tears, she thanked 'everyone who let a chav play an American rich girl' Photograph: Ian Gavan/Getty Images

Anita Dobson and Brian May. May's Queen-themed jukebox number, We Will Rock You, won the Radio 2 audience award – something which provided him with great delight, he admitted from the podium, considering the 'shitty' reviews it originally experienced Photograph: Ian West/PA

A surprise winner in the hotly contested best actor category was Roger Allam, whose Falstaff at the Globe beat, among others, Derek Jacobi's Lear and Rory Kinnear's Hamlet. Nancy Carroll won in the best actress category for her turn in Terence Rattigan's After the Dance at the National – the evening's big winner, with four Oliviers Photograph: Ian Gavan/Getty Images

Rattigan's play also scored another gong, for Adrian Scarborough, as best supporting actor – pictured here alongside Michelle Terry, who won best supporting actress for her role in Tribes at the Royal Court Photograph: Ian Gavan/Getty Images

Another Royal Court winner was Bruce Norris's race satire Clybourne Park, which took the gong for best new play and recently transferred to the West End Photograph: Ian Gavan/Getty Images

One of the evening's upsets – albeit a deserved one – came in the best director category, which went to Howard Davies for a staging of a little-known play by Mikhail Bulgakov, The White Guard. The Donmar's outgoing artistic director, Michael Grandage, had been hotly tipped, as had the Royal Court's Dominic Cooke Photograph: Richard Young / Rex Features/Richard Young / Rex Features

But one of the evening's uncontested winners was Stephen Sondheim (right), who took home a special lifetime achievement award, presented by Cameron Mackintosh. After he accepted it, a surprise special guest appeared: old friend Angela Lansbury, who performed an excerpt from A Little Night Music Photograph: Richard Young / Rex Features/Richard Young / Rex Features

A funny thing happened ... Sondheim clutching his statuette after the ceremony Photograph: Richard Young / Rex Features/Richard Young / Rex Features