South Bank Sky Arts Award Winners 2013

Twenty Twelve, the Olympic Cauldron and Jessie Ware all win at the most prestigious arts awards in the world.

The Olympic Cauldron, the centrepiece of the London Olympics opening ceremony, received its first major accolade today when it was awarded the Visual Arts Award at the South Bank Show Sky Arts Awards.

In a glittering ceremony attended by some of the most illustrious patrons, practitioners and performers in the arts, the winners in visual art, theatre, opera, dance, comedy, classical music, pop, TV drama, literature and film were presented with their awards. Hosted by Melvyn Bragg, this is the seventeenth year of the awards and its third year in association with Sky Arts.

Thomas Heatherwick and his team triumphed in the Visual Art Category with his extraordinary ambitious construction with each petal brought into the arena with the athletes and assembled piece by piece. It saw off competition from Hopkins Architects for The Olympic Velodrome and the Turner-Prize nominated artist Paul Noble. The Award was presented by Grayson Perry.

The South Bank Sky Arts awards are the UK’s most coveted arts awards, celebrating the best of British culture and achievement. The ceremony will be broadcast at 9.30pm on Sky Arts 1 HD this Thursday evening the 14th of March.

The BAFTA and Golden Globe-winning actress Julie Walters was awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award for an extraordinary career that has spanned nearly four decades. The award was presented to Julie by Victoria Wood.

The Olympics proved a source of rich material across the arts with the BBC’s Olympic mockumentary Twenty Twelve triumphant against Sky Atlantic’s two nominations, Alan Partridge: Welcome to The Places of My Life and Hunderby, Julia Davies’ period-sitcom homage to Daphne du Maurier.

For the first time ever, all three nominations for TV Drama were BBC Two productions. Richard E. Grant presented the award to Parade’s End, the Tom Stoppard adaptation of Ford Maddox Ford’s tetralogy about a love triangle set against the backdrop of the First World War, which starred Benedict Cumberbatch and Rebecca Hall. It emerged triumphant against the thriller Line of Duty and The Hollow Crown, the BBC’s dramatization of Shakespeare’s history plays, produced by Sam Mendes.

Jo Whiley presented the Pop Music award to Jessie Ware who triumphed with her debut album Devotion against pop stalwarts Saint Etienne’s Words and Music and Ill Manors from Plan B.

The Times Breakthrough Award was given to the actor Tom Hiddleston who has had a meteoric rise in his career since he graduated from RADA in 2005, with roles in War Horse, Thor and The Hollow Crown. The award was presented by Tim Minchin.

Hilary Mantel added another award to her burgeoning mantelpiece, winning the Literature Award for her historical novel Bring Up the Bodies. She saw off competition from Will Self’s Umbrella and Kerry Hudson’s debut Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-cream Float Before He Stole My Ma.

Jessie Ware, Alfie Boe and pianist Benjamin Grosvenor performed at the awards, which took place at The Dorchester. Russell Kane, Kristin Scott Thomas, Dame Margaret Drabble and Akram Khan were just some of the other presenters involved in this year’s ceremony.

The new series of The South Bank Show will begin on Sky Arts 1 in the spring. The subjects for this year’s series will be announced imminently.

SOUTH BANK SKY ARTS AWARD WINNERS 2013

Comedy: Twenty Twelve, BBC Two
Presented by Russell Kane. Other nominees were Alan Partridge: Welcome to The Places of My Life – Sky Atlantic and Hunderby – Sky Atlantic.

Theatre: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, National Theatre
Presented by Kristin Scott Thomas. Other nominees were The River, The Royal Court Theatre – Jerwood Theatre Upstairs and The Master & Margarita, Complicite – Barbican

Visual Art: Thomas Heatherwick, London 2012 Olympic Cauldron
Presented by Grayson Perry. Other nominees were Hopkins Architects: London 2012 Velodrome, Olympic Park and Paul Noble: Turner Prize Exhibition, Tate Britain

Times Breakthrough Award presented by Tim Minchin presented to Tom Hiddleston.

Film: Skyfall
Presented by Mark Strong. Other nominees were Berberian Sound Studio and The Imposter

Opera: Ghost Patrol, Scottish Opera and Music Theatre Wales
Presented by Amanda Echalez. Other nominees were Les Troyens, Royal Opera House and Where the Wild Things Are, Barbican

Pop Music: to Jessie Ware
Presented by Jo Whiley. Other nominees were Plan B, Ill Manors and Saint Etienne, Words and Music

Dance: A Streetcar Named Desire, Scottish Ballet
Presented by Akram Khan. Other nominees were Jeux, English National Ballet and Metamorphosis: Titian 2012, Royal Ballet & National Gallery

Classical: London Philharmonic Orchestra, Julian Anderson, Ryan Wigglesworth – The Discovery of Heaven, Royal Festival Hall.
Presented by Howard Goodall. Other nominees were Iestyn Davies, Arcangelo, Jonathan Cohen, Arias for Guadagni and London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Simon Rattle, Wynton Marsalis’s Swing Symphony, Barbican.

TV Drama: Parade’s End, BBC Two
Presented by Richard E. Grant. Other nominees were Line of Duty, BBC 2 and The Hollow Crown, BBC2

Literature: Bring Up The Bodies, Hilary Mantel
Presented by Dame Margaret Drabble. Other nominees were Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-cream Float Before He Stole My Ma, Kerry Hudson and Umbrella, Will Self

The Outstanding Achievement Award, in association with the Dorchester, presented by Victoria Wood to Julie Walters.

“2012 was a truly extraordinary year for this country, not only in sporting endeavours but across the arts,” commented Melvyn Bragg. “This list of most deserving winners is testament to the richness of artistic talent we have at work today and I am delighted that we able to celebrate and honour them as they deserve.”

“The judges had a particularly unenviable task this year,” commented James Hunt, Channel Director of Sky Arts. “We are delighted with this extraordinary list of winners and delighted too to be associated for another year with these eminent awards. This has been an incredible year for the arts, and for arts broadcasting.”