Laurence Olivier Award for Best Set Design

The Laurence Olivier Award for Best Set Design is an annual award presented by the Society of London Theatre in recognition of achievements in commercial London theatre. The awards were established as the Society of West End Theatre Awards in 1976, and renamed in 1984 in honour of English actor and director Laurence Olivier.

Laurence Olivier Award for Best Set Design
Awarded for	Best Set Design
Location	England
Presented by	Society of London Theatre
Currently held by	Tom Scutt (set design) for Fiddler on the Roof (2025)
Website	officiallondontheatre.com/olivier-awards/

The award originated as a single award for Designer of the Year in 1976 before being renamed as Best Set Design in 1991 with the introduction of awards for Best Costume Design and Best Lighting Design. In 2004, the award for Best Sound Design was introduced.

Winners and nominees

1970s

Year	Designer	Production
1976
	Abd'Elkader Farrah	Henry IV and Henry V
	Eileen Diss	The Family Dance
	Ralph Koltai	Old World and Wild Oats
	Alan Tagg	Confusions
1977
	John Napier	King Lear
	John Bury	Volpone
	Tazeena Firth and Timothy O'Brien	Tales from the Vienna Woods
	Ralph Koltai	Rosmersholm
1978
	Ralph Koltai	Brand
	Eileen Diss	The Homecoming
	Abd'Elkader Farrah	Henry VI
	Tanya Moiseiwitsch	The Double Dealer
1979
	William Dudley	Undiscovered Country
	John Bury	Strife
	John Napier	Once in a Lifetime
	Carl Toms	For Services Rendered

1980s

Year	Designer	Production
1980
	Dermot Hayes and John Napier	Nicholas Nickleby
	John Bury	Amadeus
	John Gunter	Juno and the Paycock
	Jocelyn Herbert	Life of Galileo
1981
	Carl Toms	The Provoked Wife
	Eileen Diss	Measure for Measure
	John Napier	Cats
	Saul Radomsky	Tonight at 8.30
1982
	John Gunter	Guys and Dolls
	Abd'Elkader Farrah	Poppy
	Carl Toms	Windy City
	Ultz	The Twin Rivals
1983
	Ralph Koltai	Cyrano de Bergerac
	John Gunter	The Rivals
	John Napier	Peter Pan
	Carl Toms	The Real Thing
1984
	John Gunter	Wild Honey
	Voytek Dolinski and Michael Levine	Strange Interlude
	John Napier	Starlight Express
	Carl Toms	The Aspern Papers
1985
	William Dudley	The Mysteries
	Alison Chitty	Martine and She Stoops to Conquer
	Bob Crowley	Henry V, Love's Labour's Lost and The Winter's Tale
	Philip Prowse	The Duchess of Malfi
1986
	William Dudley	Futurists
	Maria Björnson	The Phantom of the Opera
	Bob Crowley	As You Like It and Les liaisons dangereuses
	Carl Toms	Dalliance and The Magistrate
1987
	Lucio Fanti	The Hairy Ape
	Bob Crowley	A Penny for a Song and Macbeth
	William Dudley	Girlfriends, Kiss Me, Kate and Richard II
	Kappa Senoh	Macbeth
1988
	Richard Hudson	Andromache, Bussy D'Ambois, Candide, One Way Pendulum, The Tempest and Too Clever by Half
	William Dudley	Bartholomew Fair, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Changeling, The Shaughraun and Waiting for Godot
	Nick Ormerod	A Family Affair, Philoctetes and The Tempest
	Mark Thompson	Measure for Measure and The Wizard of Oz

1990s

Year	Designer	Production
1990
	Bob Crowley	Ghetto, Hedda Gabler, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and The Plantagenets
	The Design Team	Suicide for Love
	Chris Dyer	The Merchant of Venice and The Wars of the Roses
	John Napier	Miss Saigon
1991
	Mark Thompson	The Wind in the Willows
	Tom Cairns	Sunday in the Park with George
	William Dudley	Marya
	Nigel Lowery	The Illusion
1992
	Mark Thompson	The Comedy of Errors and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
	Bob Crowley	When She Danced, Murmuring Judges and The Night of the Iguana
	Ashley Martin-Davis	The Miser and The Recruiting Officer
	Philip Prowse	A Woman of No Importance and The White Devil
1993
	Ian MacNeil	An Inspector Calls
	Bob Crowley	Carousel, Henry IV and No Man's Land
	Jerome Sirlin	Kiss of the Spider Woman
	Robin Wagner	Crazy for You
1994
	Mark Thompson	Hysteria
	Peter J. Davison	Medea
	Ian MacNeil	Machinal
	Anthony Ward	The Winter's Tale
1995
	Stephen Brimson Lewis	Design for Living and Les Parents terribles
	Lez Brotherston	Neville's Island
	Peter J. Davison	Le Cid and Saint Joan
	Anthony Ward	Sweet Bird of Youth and The Tempest
1996
	John Napier	Burning Blue
	John Gunter	Skylight, Absolute Hell and Twelfth Night
	Rob Howell	The Glass Menagerie
	Anthony Ward	A Midsummer Night's Dream, La Grande Magia and The Way of the World
1997
	Tim Hatley	Stanley
	John Arnone	Tommy
	Paul Farnsworth	Passion
	Mark Thompson	'Art'
1998
	Tim Goodchild	Three Hours After Marriage
	William Dudley	The Homecoming
	John Gunter	The Peter Hall Company's Season
	Rob Howell	Chips with Everything
1999
	Anthony Ward	Oklahoma!
	Maria Björnson	Britannicus and Phèdre
	William Dudley	Amadeus and Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle and Dick
	Richard Hoover	Not About Nightingales
	Mark Thompson	The Blue Room and The Unexpected Man

2000s

Year	Designer	Production
2000
	Rob Howell	Richard III, Troilus and Cressida and Vassa
	Maria Björnson	Plenty
	Lez Brotherston	Spend Spend Spend
	Richard Hudson	The Lion King
2001
	William Dudley	All My Sons
	Bunny Christie	Baby Doll
	Rob Howell	The Caretaker
	Brian Thomson	The King and I
2002
	Tim Hatley	Humble Boy and Private Lives
	Lez Brotherston	The Little Foxes and A Midsummer Night's Dream
	Julian Crouch and Graeme Gilmour	Shockheaded Peter
	Robin Wagner	Kiss Me, Kate
	Anthony Ward	My Fair Lady
2003
	Bunny Christie	A Streetcar Named Desire
	Lez Brotherston	Play Without Words
	William Dudley	The Coast of Utopia
	Anthony Ward	Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
2004
	William Dudley	Hitchcock Blonde
	Bob Crowley	Mourning Becomes Electra
	Franco Zeffirelli	Absolutely! (Perhaps)
2005
	Giles Cadle	His Dark Materials
	Bob Crowley	Mary Poppins
	William Dudley	The Woman in White
	Ian MacNeil	Festen
	Christopher Oram	Suddenly, Last Summer
2006
	Rob Howell	Hedda Gabler
	Ian MacNeil	Billy Elliot
	Christopher Oram	Don Carlos
2007
	David Farley and Timothy Bird	Sunday in the Park with George
	Tim Hatley	Spamalot
	Eugene Lee	Wicked
2008
	Rae Smith and Handspring Puppet Company	War Horse
	Rob Howell	The Lord of the Rings
	David Rockwell	Hairspray
	Anthony Ward and Lorna Heavey	Macbeth
2009
	Todd Rosenthal	August: Osage County
	Paul Brown	Marguerite
	Soutra Gilmour	The Collection and The Lover
	Neil Murray	Brief Encounter
	Tom Piper	The Histories

2010s

Year	Designer	Production
2010
	Ultz	Jerusalem
	Christopher Oram	Red
	Mark Thompson	England People Very Nice
	Anthony Ward	ENRON
2011
	Bunny Christie	The White Guard
	Lez Brotherston	Design for Living
	Miriam Buether	Earthquakes in London
	Bob Crowley	Love Never Dies
2012
	Rob Howell	Matilda
	Rob Howell	Ghost
	Michael Taylor	The Ladykillers
	Mark Thompson	One Man, Two Guvnors
2013
	Bunny Christie and Finn Ross	The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
	Hildegard Bechtler	Top Hat
	Miriam Buether and Wang Gongxin	Wild Swans
	Tim Hatley	The Bodyguard
2014
	Es Devlin	Chimerica
	Bob Crowley	Once
	Tim Goodchild	Strangers on a Train
	Mark Thompson	Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
2015
	Es Devlin	The Nether
	Bunny Christie	Made in Dagenham
	Rob Jones	City of Angels
	Jan Versweyveld	A View from the Bridge
2016
	Anna Fleischle	Hangmen
	Hildegard Bechtler	Oresteia
	Es Devlin	Hamlet
	Jonathan Fensom	Farinelli and the King
2017
	Christine Jones	Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
	Bob Crowley	Aladdin
		The Glass Menagerie
	Rob Howell	Groundhog Day
2018
	Bob Crowley and 59 Productions	An American in Paris
	Bunny Christie	Ink
	Rob Howell	The Ferryman
	Vicki Mortimer	Follies
2019
	Bunny Christie	Company
	Bob Crowley	The Inheritance
	Es Devlin	The Lehman Trilogy
	Anna Fleischle	Home, I'm Darling

2020s

Year	Designer	Production
2020
	Bob Crowley	Mary Poppins
	Soutra Gilmour	& Juliet
	Rae Smith	Rosmersholm
		Uncle Vanya
2021	Not presented due to extended closing of theatre productions during COVID-19 pandemic[A]
2022[A]
	Tim Hatley (set design), Nick Barnes and Finn Caldwell (puppet design)	Life of Pi
	Tim Hatley (set design) and Finn Ross (video design)	Back to the Future: The Musical
	Derek McLane	Moulin Rouge!
	Tom Scutt	Cabaret
2023
	Tom Pye	My Neighbour Totoro
	Miriam Buether	To Kill A Mockingbird
	Ben Stones	Standing at the Sky's Edge
	Mark Walters	Jack and the Beanstalk
2024
	Miriam Buether (set design), 59 Productions (video design)	Stranger Things: The First Shadow
	Bunny Christie (set design)	Guys and Dolls
	Es Devlin (set design), Ash J Woodward (video design)	Dear England
	Soutra Gilmour (set design), Nathan Amzi & Joe Ransom (video design)	Sunset Boulevard
2025	Jon Bausor (set design), Toby Olié & Daisy Beattie (puppetry design) & Satoshi Kuriyama (projection design)	Spirited Away
	Frankie Bradshaw (set design)	Ballet Shoes
	Es Devlin (set design)	Coriolanus
	Tom Scutt (set design)	Fiddler on the Roof

1. Due to late March 2020^[1] to late July 2021^[2] closing of London theatre productions during the COVID-19 pandemic in England, the 2022 awards recognise productions that launched anytime from February 2020 to February 2022^[3]

Individuals with multiple wins

5 wins

• William Dudley

4 wins

• Bunny Christie

3 wins

• Bob Crowley
• Tim Hatley
• Rob Howell
• John Napier
• Mark Thompson (2 consecutive)

2 wins

• Es Devlin (consecutive)
• John Gunter
• Ralph Koltai

See also

• Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design
• Tony Award for Best Scenic Design