Nominations announced for The South Bank Sky Arts Awards 2018

Awards Date: Sunday 1 July 2018

A host of outstanding performers, artists, musicians, authors and films have been nominated for The South Bank Sky Arts Awards 2018. Now in its 22nd year, the prestigious annual awards ceremony will take place at The Savoy Hotel in London on Sunday 1 July 2018, celebrating the wide range of creative talent Britain has to offer, from Stormzy to Paddington 2.

Hosted by Melvyn Bragg, The South Bank Sky Arts Awards this year will continue its legacy as the only awards ceremony in the world to represent the entire spectrum of the arts, with categories for TV Drama, Classical Music, Theatre, Comedy, Dance, Film, Visual Art, Pop, Literature and Opera.

Christopher Nolan’s nail-biting war epic Dunkirk is nominated in an incredibly strong Film category, which includes the hilarious Paddington 2 and independent filmmaking success Lady Macbeth. Meanwhile, Olivier Award-winning productions The Ferryman and Follies are nominated in the Theatre category alongside The Jungle, while newcomer Dua Lipa caps off a barnstorming breakthrough year in the Pop category, alongside Stormzy for Gang Signs & Prayer and Loyle Carner for Yesterday’s Gone. The TV Drama category pitches the explosive Line of Duty against period pieces The Crown and Howards End.

The celebration also includes The Times Breakthrough Award, recognising achievements made by newcomers across the full range of the arts; previous winners include Amma Asante, Tom Hiddleston, Billie Piper and Sheku Kanneh-Mason, a cellist whose star is on the rise following his captivating performance at the Royal Wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. The climax of the event is the Outstanding Achievement Award, presented for continued excellence in British culture; previous winners include Harold Pinter, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Tracey Emin, J K Rowling and Helen Mirren.

Melvyn Bragg said: “The Creative Industries generate £92 billion a year, and yet the funding cuts in the arts in schools are very worrying. A recent study of 1,200 secondary schools found that 90% had cut back on arts teachers, facilities and equipment. Since 2010, there has been a 28% drop in pupils taking arts GCSEs, with a corresponding drop in the number of arts teachers being trained. This means that the future of everything we stand for and everything we’re good at is being threatened. But what we also stand for are events like these awards, which show how rich and diverse the arts in this country are.”

Phil Edgar-Jones, director of Sky Arts, said: “With funding for the arts and arts education facing challenging times, Sky Arts’ work supporting artists and the creative industries is more important than ever. We are proud to host The South Bank Sky Arts Awards which reflect the breadth and diversity of talent and voices in the creative industries.”

Artist Yinka Shonibare MBE, Fellow of the Royal Academy, has been commissioned to design this year’s award, which he describes as an expression of how he supports the importance of the Arts as they remain of value to our humanity.

An unmissable event in the British awards calendar, the ceremony will be held at The Savoy Hotel in London on Sunday 1 July 2018, and will be broadcast on Sky Arts later in the week.

For more information, please visit:

https://www.sky.com/watch/channel/sky-arts

Full List of Nominees

VISUAL ART

Mat Collishaw - Thresholds, Somerset House

Paula Rego - The Boy Who Loved the Sea and Other Stories, Jerwood Gallery

Rose Wylie - Quack Quack, Serpentine Sackler Gallery

COMEDY

Catastrophe - Channel 4

Inside No. 9 - BBC Two

This Country - BBC Three

THEATRE

The Ferryman – Royal Court / Gielgud. Produced by Sonia Friedman Productions, Neal Street Productions & Royal Court Theatre Productions

Follies - National Theatre

The Jungle - A Young Vic and National Theatre co-production with Good Chance Theatre. Commissioned by the National Theatre

FILM

Lady Macbeth

Dunkirk

Paddington 2

DANCE

Maliphantworks - Russell Maliphant Company

Flight Pattern - The Royal Ballet

Pina Bausch's Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) - English National Ballet

CLASSICAL MUSIC

Gurrelieder - BBC Philharmonic and the Hallé

Enescu’s Oedipe - London Philharmonic Orchestra

This is Rattle - London Symphony Orchestra

LITERATURE

Home Fire - Kamila Shamsie

Ma’am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret - Craig Brown

La Belle Sauvage: The Book of Dust Volume One - Philip Pullman

OPERA

Pelléas and Mélisande - Scottish Opera

Hamlet - Glyndebourne

Albert Herring - The Grange Festival

POP

Stormzy - Gang Signs & Prayer

Loyle Carner - Yesterday’s Gone

Dua Lipa - Dua Lipa

TV DRAMA

Line of Duty - World Productions / BBC One

The Crown - LEFT BANK Pictures / Netflix

Howards End - Playground / BBC One

THE TIMES BREAKTHROUGH AWARD

Pop - Nubya Garcia

Comedy - Sophie Willan

TV Drama - Alex Lawther

Dance - Dickson Mbi

Theatre - Monica Dolan

Classical Music - Oliver Zeffman

Opera - Rachel Redmond

Literature - Imogen Hermes Gowar

Film - Francis Lee

Visual Art – Heather Agyepong

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

To Be Announced

For further information, please contact:

Simon Bell. Premier. Simon.Bell@premiercomms.com 020 7292 7378

Georgie Rennie. Premier. Georgie.Rennie@premiercomms.com 0207 292 8361

Note to editors

About The South Bank Sky Arts Awards:

The South Bank Sky Arts Awards are the only awards ceremony in the world to represent the entire spectrum of the British Arts. Previous winners across the various categories include Doctor Foster for TV Drama, Skyfall for Film, and Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies for Literature. Previous winners of the Outstanding Achievement Award include Harold Pinter, Judi Dench, JK Rowling, Eddie Izzard and last year Andrew Lloyd Webber.

About Sky Arts

Sky Arts is the UK’s only dedicated channel for the arts. It offers something for everyone, whatever their passion, with entertaining programmes showcasing the best of classical and popular music, theatre, opera, dance and the visual arts, as well as original drama and comedy. Sky Arts is broadcast 24 hours a day and has over 1,000 hours available on catch-up TV, including flagship programmes such as Portrait Artist of The Year, Landscape Artist of the Year and The South Bank Show.

The channel is committed to supporting the arts by investing in the best talent, both on and off screen, as well as through exclusive partnerships with major UK and European cultural institutions, including National Theatre Live, Tate and The British Library.

Sky is Europe's leading entertainment company, serving 23 million customers across seven countries - UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain and Switzerland. The company had annual reported revenues of £12.9 billion in 2016/17, and is Europe’s leading investor in television content with an annual programming spend of around £7 billion. Sky has over 31,000 employees and is listed as one of The Times Top 50 employers for women, as well as being recognised in the Stonewall list of Top 50 LGBT-inclusive employers. Sky is listed on the London Stock Exchange (SKY).