Australia’s Sarah Snook has followed up on her recent success starring in the television series Succession by winning the award for best actress for her role in The Picture Of Dorian Gray at the Olivier Awards.

The production also picked up a gong for best costume design.

“It’s an incredible honour to be on the stage in the West End and this (the award) is not something that I thought would come along with that,” Snook said in her acceptance speech on Monday (Australian time).

“A huge immeasurable thank-you to Kip Williams and your very big brain and your specificity and precision and your inspiration – and I just thank my lucky stars I get to play inside that mad world you’ve created every night.”

Snook, who has also won a Golden Globe and an Emmy for her role in Succession, plays 26 characters over two hours in Dorian Gray.

“It’s billed as a one-woman show but it’s not. It’s the crew who are on stage with me all the time every night and they are a vital and constant support and inspirational,” she said.

“So thank you to the crew for being there in this show with me.”

Other big winners at Britain’s top theatre ceremony overnight included a revived version of Sunset Boulevard, the musical based on the 1950s film, and its leading actress Nicole Scherzinger. They picked up seven prizes.

The show’s lead duo of US singer Scherzinger, who rose to fame with pop band The Pussycat Dolls, and Britain’s Tom Francis were named best actress and actor in a musical, while Jamie Lloyd won the award for best director.

The Broadway-bound show, with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, also clinched the musical revival category, along with the best lighting design, musical contribution and sound design awards at the ceremony at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

Scherzinger, who was born in Hawaii and raised in Kentucky, portrays Norma Desmond, a one-time film star who longs for a comeback, in the 1993 reinvention of the 1950 film, which featured Gloria Swanson.

London’s National Theatre won three awards, including best new play for Dear England, a portrayal of the English national soccer team’s perennial heartbreak, and best actor for Mark Gatiss in The Motive And The Cue, as director John Gielgud in a difficult professional relationship with actor Richard Burton.

Stranger Things, The First Shadow, a stage adaptation of part of the hit Netflix series Stranger Things, won the best new entertainment or comedy play and set design categories.

The best new musical prize went to Operation Mincemeat, which tells the story of British military subterfuge during World War II.

– with AAP