After alternating playing Victor Frankenstein and the Creature for each performance of a three-month run at the National Theatre, Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller have been rewarded jointly with the best actor prize at the UK's longest-running theatre awards.

The judges for the 2011 London Evening Standard awards said it would have been "invidious not to recognise both actors" for what were memorable performances in Frankenstein, the Danny Boyle-directed production.

One role involved two hours in makeup and getting naked on stage to play Frankenstein's creation; the other, that of the egomaniac scientist himself, did not.

Although the awards have been running since 1955, Cumberbatch and Miller are among the few to share the best actor award, jointly following in some illustrious footsteps ? the first recipient was Richard Burton for Henry V, followed by Paul Scofield, Laurence Olivier and Michael Redgrave. The duo won from a shortlist which also included Bertie Carvel for Matilda the Musical and Charles Edwards for Much Ado About Nothing at Shakespeare's Globe.

The ceremony at London's Savoy Hotel on Sunday night, hosted by Dame Edna Everage, proved a successful one for the National, which received the most nominations and some significant wins.

They included Mike Leigh , who was named best director for Grief, his heartbreaking 1950s story of unhappiness and loneliness which was staged in the Cottesloe, the National's smallest auditorium.

Richard Bean won the award for best play for two plays: One Man, Two Guvnors which was a huge success at the National and is now playing in the West End ahead of a transfer to Broadway in the spring; and The Heretic, which explored climate change, at the Royal Court last February.

Sheridan Smith was named best actress for her hugely moving performance as a brassy ex-barmaid waiting for her Polish count husband to return from wartime pilot duties in Terence Rattigan's Flare Path, directed by Trevor Nunn at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. The award adds to the Olivier she won earlier this year for her lead performance in the musical Legally Blonde. Smith won from a strong shortlist that also included Samantha Spiro, for Chicken Soup with Barley at the Royal Court, and Kristin Scott Thomas, for Betrayal at the Comedy.

Thomas was able to take some consolation after being given the Lebedev special award named after the Standard's Russian chairman Evgeny Lebedev. Stephen Fry presented the award, given "in recognition that her appearance immediately turns a production into an event".

The Milton Shulman prize for most promising newcomer provided something of a domestic drama as the shortlist included husband and wife Kyle Soller and Phoebe Fox , who met at RADA.

Soller, an American, pipped it, winning for three performances in The Faith Machine at the Royal Court and The Glass Menagerie and Government Inspector, both at the Young Vic.

The Charles Wintour award for most promising playwright was won by Penelope Skinner for her play The Village Bike at the Royal Court, which starred Romala Garai as Becky, a pregnant wife desperate for sex.

It has been a mixed year for musicals with one of the shortlisted productions, Betty Blue Eyes, forced to close early because it couldn't get big enough audiences. The list also included the National's London Road and the winner, the Royal Shakespeare Company's Matilda the Musical, an adaptation of Roald Dahl's story by Dennis Kelly and comedian Tim Minchin which has transferred from Stratford-upon-Avon to the West End.

The best design prize went to a sound designer, Adam Cork, for his work on the Donmar Warehouse productions Anna Christie and King Lear.

A new prize called the Beyond Theatre award was won by the collaboration between the band, the Pet Shop Boys, and Venezuelan choreographer Javier de Frutos for The Most Incredible Thing ? a full length dance adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen story ? at Sadler's Wells.

There were two other special awards, one given to Michael Grandage who is stepping down after nine successful years at the Donmar Warehouse in London's Covent Garden, having extended what is a small theatre's reach into the West End and Broadway. Josie Rourke has taken over while Grandage is concentrating on a freelance career with his production of Evita opening on Broadway in the spring.

And Tom Stoppard, whose adaptation of Anna Karenina is one of the most anticipated 2012 drama films, was given the Moscow Art Theatre's Golden Seagull for "his contribution to Russian theatre and the international stage."

The Oliviers ? to be held next April at the Royal Opera House ? are regarded as the main event when it comes to UK theatre awards but the Evening Standard awards hold an important place in the calendar, not least through longevity, with Sunday night's ceremony being the 57th.