The famous faces in The Savoy ballroom on Sunday night were enough to make anyone a bit giddy. I was lucky to join stars Judi Dench, Anna Wintour, Bill Nighy, Damian Lewis, Ian McKellen, Colin Firth and Danny Boyle to celebrate the capital’s best theatre, at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards 2012.

Compere James Corden opened the ceremony with a cheeky song called “For the love of awards”, reminding us that he has a tip-top singing voice as well as plenty of wit. The night had some serious moments too: double award-winner Nicholas Hytner spoke passionately in support of public funding for the arts, and Judi Dench was moved by a special award.

THE BIG WINNERS

Judi Dench

Everyone’s favourite Bond matriarch was awarded the Moscow Art Theatre Golden Seagull Award, a golden bird-shaped broach that signifies her achievements in bringing London theatre to the world’s attention. “I’ll never take it off,” she declared.

Danny Boyle

After he got the Queen to jump out of a helicopter (or so it seemed) in the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony, it’s fitting that Danny Boyle’s extraordinary £27 million production should get special recognition. He and his team scooped up the Beyond Theatre Award for pushing the boundaries of theatre with the ceremony, which was arguably the best – and certainly the biggest – performance of the year.

Nicholas Hytner

The director of the National Theatre picked up the Best Director award for setting the little-known Shakespeare play Timon of Athens in modern times. Hytner also won the Lebedev Special Award in recognition of his ten-year leadership of the National Theatre, which has seen him bring War Horse and One Man, Two Guvnors to the stage.

One to watch – Matthew Tennyson

Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Hardy won the Outstanding Newcomer Award in their early days, so it’s worth keeping your eye on young actor Matthew Tennyson who won this year’s prize for his role in Making Noise Quietly at the Donmar Warehouse.

PLAYS TO SEE

The Judas Kiss

The Judas Kiss, a play about Oscar Wilde was on everyone’s lips at the awards, despite not being nominated. It received glowing praise from National Theatre director Nicholas Hytner, who described Rupert Everett’s performance as one of the best on the London stage for years.

Constellations

Writer Nick Payne won the award for Best Play for Constellations, becoming the youngest person to the category at just 29. It’s a tender story of love, awkwardness and string theory, using physics as a metaphor for life.

Sweeney Todd

Named Best Musical at the awards, this tale of a homicidal barber could convince even those allergic to musical theatre to burst into song. Stephen Sondheim’s score for Sweeney Todd is delicious in its complexity, and leading duo Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton are musical royalty.

Have you seen any of the award-winners? Or have you seen some theatre recently that deserves an award?

There’s Anthony Head (from Buffy to Merlin to the Old Vic) leading the cast in Six Degrees of Separation from January next year; and a winning team in Kim Cattrall and Matthew MacFadyen, starring in Noel Coward’s Private Lives at the Vaudeville from February. It suddenly seems a long time until the start of 2010; we can’t wait!

Another West End show which has benefitted from its fab celeb casting has announced closing dates this week. The wonderfully camp La Cage Aux Folles has featured star turns from Graham Norton and John Barrowman, but it’ll be shaking its feather-boas for the last time at the Playhouse Theatre on 2 January. Book now, if you haven’t seen it yet! Fittingly, like a well-made transvestite’s glove, the actor who opened this revival in London back in 2007, Douglas Hodge will be back wearing the diamonds and dresses for the final curtain. It’s sad news for London, but we should be proud that this award-winning, sequin-filled show is headed to Broadway for 2010.

And we move from award-winners to awards season in Theatreland! The Evening Standard Theatre Awards shortlist was announced this week. Dominated by the Royal Court (well done Jerusalem, Enron, Mark Rylance, Samuel West, and my favourite, Rupert Goold), there’s also shows from the National (August: Osage County) and the Lyric (Punk Rock). The prize for best musical will be fought out between two revivals, A Little Night Music and Hello, Dolly!, and two new productions, Been So Long and Spring Awakening. Read the complete shortlist here.

The ES awards will be announced at the Royal Opera House on 23 November. After that, we’ve got the Theatregoers’ Choice Awards and the Critics’ Circle Awards. We’ll bring you news on those when we have it!

Do the Evening Standard Theatre Awards sound a bit too passive for you, waiting to find out who the critics have chosen to reward for their talents? Would you prefer to have your say in who wins what? Then you should sign up to be an Olivier Awards judge! The lucky panel get to see about 80 shows in a year, before helping pick the best of the bunch. Sound like a dream come true? Sign up here.

Finally for this week, we’re thrilled to hit your silliness buttons again with news about SILENCE! The Musical, an unauthorised parody of the cult classic, The Silence of the Lambs, coming to London next year. The show features Olivier award-winner Miles Western as Hannibal Lecter, and opens on 19 January at The Above the Stag Theatre in Victoria. Expect singing serial killers, songs with titles we just can’t publish here, and a chorus of tap dancing lambs…