Hairspray won two gongs at the Critics' Circle Theatre Awards today - best musical and newcomer for Leanne Jones.

Jones, 22, worked in a Halifax bank call centre and was struggling for a break after acting school before she was plucked from obscurity to take the female lead in Hairspray, co-starring Mel Smith and Michael Ball.

Her fellow winners today included British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, who beat his Othello co-star Ewan McGregor to the Best Shakespearean Performance title.

Ejiofor's performance as Othello has, according to the critics, overshadowed McGregor's turn as arch-villain Iago in the play, which marks Michael Grandage's fifth season as artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse in London.

Former Star Trek: The Next Generation actor Patrick Stewart, who has been starring as Macbeth at London's Gielgud theatre following a transfer from Chichester, took the Best Shakespearean Performance title jointly with Ejiofor.

Macbeth also took a second award for Best Director for Rupert Goold.

Charles Dance won Best Actor for his performance in Shadowlands, the play about Christian author CS Lewis, and former Shameless star Anne-Marie Duff was named Best Actress for Saint Joan.

WINNERS

Best New Play

A Disappearing Number by Simon McBurney and Complicite

(Plymouth Theatre Royal, Warwick Arts Centre, European tour and the Barbican Theatre, London)

The Peter Hepple Award for Best Musical (new or revival)

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