Brendan Gleeson wins Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Actor

Brendan Gleeson has won the Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Actor for his West End debut in Conor McPherson's pub drama The Weir.

He beat his fellow nominees Bryan Cranston and Paapa Essiedu from All My Sons, as well as James Hameed and Arti Shah, the duo who together portray Paddington in the new musical.

All winners of the Critics' Circle Theatre Awards were revealed at a ceremony at the National Theatre in London on Thursday, March 26.

In The Weir, Gleeson plays one of the four men sharing stories in a remote Irish pub with a woman who has newly arrived in the area. The stories they weave to impress her are "gripping, haunting and deeply unsettling," according to the logline.

"Little do they know that she has a profoundly personal story of her own, the sharing of which will leave them all shaken".

The Weir is a "testament to the need for human connection, the possibility of hope, and the enduring power of storytelling," it continues.

The cast also includes Owen McDonnell, Seán McGinley, Kate Phillips, and Tom Vaughan-Lawlor.

In 2025, The Weir had two sold-out runs at Dublin's 3Olympia Theatre and at the Harold Pinter Theatre on London's West End. The play was Gleeson's first theatre performance in a decade. Read more here.

Watch the trailer for The Weir below: