The Trip to Italy, FKA twigs and Pride triumph at the South Bank Sky Arts Awards 2015

Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon and Michael Winterbottom’s The Trip to Italy was presented with the award for best Comedy by Stephen Fry at this year’s South Bank Sky Arts Awards, the only awards ceremony in the world to honour all of the arts. The awards will be broadcast on Sky Arts at 8pm on 10th June.  

Editor and master of ceremonies Melvyn Bragg presided over the star-studded event, which also saw FKA twigs win the hotly contested Pop category, beating Young Fathers and Sam Smith. 

The uplifting Pride triumphed over Paddington and Under the Skin for best film, whilst the Almeida/Wyndham’s Theatre King Charles III beat his ancient “ancestor” Henry IV (Donmar Warehouse) and The Young Vic’s A View from the Bridge to win the Theatre category. 

Actress Marianne Jean-Baptiste presented BBC Two’s political thriller The Honourable Woman  with the gong for TV Drama, beating other BBC dramas Line of Duty and Happy Valley, in an increasingly tough category.  

The poignant, evocative Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red installation at HM Tower of London captured the hearts and minds of the judges to win the Visual Art prize, triumphing over Grayson Perry’s Who Are You?, an exploration of the multiple identities that exist in modern Britain today, and Phyllida Barlow’s visually imposing dock at Tate Britain in 2014.

Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery, the extraordinary memoirs of leading neurosurgeon Henry Marsh, beat David Nicholls’ acclaimed novel Us and the award-winning H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald to be crowned winner for Literature, presented by author Jacqueline Wilson. 

In the classical categories; the Royal Opera House’s Die Frau ohne Schatten  was awarded the Opera prize, Peter Maxwell Davies’ Symphony No.10 triumphed in the Classical category, and English National Ballet’s compelling reflection on World War I, Lest We Forget took the prize for Dance. 

This year’s winner out of the ten contenders for The Times Breakthrough Award is Luke Pasqualino, known for his performances in E4’s Skins and last year’s The Musketeers on BBC One. 

At this year’s ceremony, the world famous dancer Sylvie Guillem was presented with the Outstanding Achievement award by Akram Khan, following her final performance at Sadlers’ Wells last month.

In addition to the South Bank Sky Arts Award winners, the ceremony also awarded Sky Academy Arts Scholarships to five up and coming young artists, who will receive a bursary of £30,000 over the next year to develop their creative practise. The winners of this year’s scholarship are Anisa Haghdadi, a Creative Producer from Birmingham, Adebayo Fakos, a musician from London, Sarah Maple, a visual Artist from West Sussex, Jonnie Bayfield, a creative Writer and performer from Norfolk and Kevin Gaffney, a visual artist from Dublin.

The ceremony featured performances by singer Will Young, soprano Anna Netrebko and  violinist Maxim Vengerov. This year’s award was designed by 22-year old Miriam Woolf, a final year student at the Glasgow School of Art, following an open competition to all students. The awards themselves were made in the GSA’s Silversmithing & Jewellery department by the same team of experts who made the widely-admired 2014 Commonwealth Games medals.

Melvyn Bragg, Editor and Presenter of the South Bank Show, commented, “The winners of this year’s South Bank Sky Arts Awards have all triumphed in their fields in an extraordinary year for the arts in Britain. It is thrilling to see so much talent in the UK and Ireland and we are delighted to honour it.”

Philip Edgar-Jones, Director of Sky Arts, commented, “The South Bank Sky Arts Awards remains one of my favourite events of the year – there’s no other awards ceremony like it anywhere. We are doubly thrilled to recognise a new generation of arts talent with the award of the Sky Academy Arts Scholarships.”

The South Bank Sky Arts 2015 Awards Winners:

Dance, presented by Irek Mukhamedov

Lest We Forget - English National Ballet

A Dream within a Midsummer Night’s Dream - Ballet Black

The Winter’s Tale - The Royal Ballet

Opera, presented by Joseph Calleja

Die Frau ohne Schatten - The Royal Opera House

Moses und Aron - Welsh National Opera

Khovanskygate: A National Enquiry- Birmingham Opera Company

Literature, presented by Jacqueline Wilson

Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery - Henry Marsh

H is for Hawk - Helen MacDonald

Us - David Nicholls

Pop, presented by Melvyn Bragg

LP1 - FKA twigs

Dead - Young Fathers 

In The Lonely Hour - Sam Smith

Film, presented by Sophia Myles 

Pride

Paddington 

Under the Skin 

Visual Art, presented by Don McCullin

Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red - Artist Paul Cummins, installation designed by Tom Piper, Tower of London

dock, Tate Britain - Phyllida Barlow

Who Are You? Channel 4 and National Portrait Gallery - Grayson Perry

Comedy, presented by Stephen Fry

The Trip to Italy - BBC Two

Doll & Em - Sky Living

W1A - BBC Two

TV Drama, presented by Marianne Jean-Baptiste

The Honourable Woman - BBC Two

Line of Duty, Series 2 - BBC Two

Happy Valley - BBC One

Theatre, presented by Adrian Lester

King Charles III - Almeida Theatre / Wyndham’s Theatre

A View from the Bridge - Young Vic

Henry IV - Donmar Warehouse

Classical, presented by Tasmin Little

Peter Maxwell Davies’ Symphony No. 10, Alla ricerca di Borromini - London Symphony Orchestra

40 Years Young - Arditti Quartet 

The Birmingham Beethoven Cycle: Symphonies 8 & 9 -City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

The Times Breakthrough Award

Luke Pasqualino - TV Drama

Luke Bedford - Classical

Sara Pascoe – Comedy

Francesca Hayward – Dance

Gugu Mbatha-Raw - Film

Emma Healey – Literature

Nicky Spence - Opera

LoneLady - Pop

1927 – Theatre

James Capper - Visual Art

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT AWARD, presented by Akram Khan: SYLVIE GUILLEM 

For further information, please contact:

Sky 

Ffion Williams

PR Manager, Sky Arts 

ffion.williams@bskyb.com  

020 7032 0599

Sky Arts

Follow us on twitter @skyarts 

For images, please go to Imagenet or email Stills@bskyb.com  

Notes to Editors 

About The South Bank Sky Arts Awards

The glittering ceremony is hosted annually by the South Bank Show editor and presenter Melvyn Bragg, and previous winners include Harold Pinter, J. K. Rowling, Dame Judi Dench, The Who, Seamus Heaney, Tom Stoppard, Tracey Emin and Alfred Brendel.

The judges of this year’s South Bank Sky Arts Awards are Gillian Greenwood, writer and South Bank Show producer, who will act as Chair; Alex O’Connell, Arts Editor at The Times; Baz Bamigboye, Entertainment Columnist at The Daily Mail; Boyd Hilton the TV & Reviews Editor at Heat Magazine; Richard Brooks the Arts Editor at The Sunday Times; Sarah Donaldson the Arts Editor at The Observer; Matt Cain the writer & broadcaster; Hugh Montgomery the Arts Editor at The Independent on Sunday and Sarfraz Manzoor the writer & broadcaster.

The South Bank Sky Arts Awards is produced for Sky Arts by Director’s Cut Productions’ Cathy Haslam and is commissioned by Celia Taylor, Head of Non-Scripted at Sky.

About Sky

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