Prestigious theatre award for Irish actor Norton

IRISH actor Jim Norton has scooped a prestigious Laurence Olivier theatre award in London for his performance in Conor McPherson’s play The Seafarer.

Mr Norton, who is primarily a theatre actor, has also appeared in films like Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and A Love Divided, but may be best known to Irish audiences for his part as Bishop Len Brennan in Father Ted, where he famously played a champagne-drinking bishop that shared a Jacuzzi with young woman.

Mr Norton won the Olivier Award for best supporting actor in the Dublin playwright’s play, which is set in Dublin on a Christmas Eve when a number of drinking buddies get together to play poker.

Mr McPherson’s play was also nominated in the Best Play category, but was beaten David Harrower’s Blackbird, a story of a woman that confronts her former abuser. A production of Blackbird is currently running at Dublin’s Project theatre. But the big winner of the Olivier Awards this year was Stephen Sondheim’s musical Sunday in the Park with George, which won five awards, including Outstanding Musical Production — as well as the big acting prizes on offer.

In what was something of a surprise, the Monty Python show Spamalot won nothing, despite its West End success.