Guests of this year’s The South Bank Show Awards at The Dorchester Hotel were thrilled to see J.K. Rowling collect the award for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts in recognition of the author’s incredible literary success with the much-loved Harry Potter series. J.K. Rowling joins a list of illustrious previous winners of this prestigious award including Tom Stoppard, Harold Pinter, Richard Eyre, Helen Mirren, Richard Attenborough and The Who.

The top prize of the night was accompanied by victories across the arts; in the categories of Film, Comedy, TV Drama, Theatre, Pop Music, Literature, Classical Music, Visual Arts, Opera, Dance, the Arts Council England decibel Award and The Times Breakthrough Award.

Director Shane Meadows picked up the Film Award for This is England, beating off fierce competition from other nominees Control and Atonement. Having narrowly missed out last year, the Arctic Monkeys finally scooped the prize for pop music with their second album Favourite Worst Nightmare and artist Andy Goldsworthy was presented with a well-deserved accolade for his work at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

Meanwhile, Thomas Adès walked away with the award for Classical Music for Traced Overhead: The Musical World of Thomas Adès. And the Theatre award went to Anne-Marie Duff, in attendance with husband and star of Atonement, James McAvoy, on behalf of the full cast and crew of Saint Joan at the National Theatre.

First time writing duo James Corden and Ruth Jones claimed the award for Comedy for Gavin and Stacey whilst the cast of Channel 4’s The Mark of Cain celebrated their award for TV Drama.

British poet Daljit Nagra won the Arts Council England Decibel Award for his debut collection entitled Look We Have Coming to Dover!

Other awards presented on the day include Mohsin Hamid for The Reluctant Fundamentalist in the Literature category, The Turn of The Screw at the ENO for Opera and Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company at Sadler’s Wells for Dance.

And The Times Breakthrough award was presented to up-and-coming violinist Jennifer Pike.


The South Bank Show Awards is broadcast on Sunday 3rd February 2008, ITV1 at 2240
and features performances from Westlife and Andrea Bocelli.

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For further information please contact:

Yasmin Eady – yasmin.eady@premierpr.com / 020 7292 7372

South Bank Show Awards: www.itv.com/southbankshowawards


THE SOUTH BANK SHOW AWARDS 2008
WINNERS AND PRESENTERS


Film
This Is England (Warp Films)

Comedy
Gavin and Stacey (BBC Three)

TV Drama
The Mark of Cain (Channel 4)

Theatre
Saint Joan (National Theatre)

Pop
Arctic Monkeys for ‘Favourite Worst Nightmare’

Literature
Mohsin Hamid for ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’

Classical Music
‘Traced Overhead: The Musical World of Thomas Adès’ (at the Barbican)

Visual Arts
Andy Goldsworthy at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Opera
‘The Turn of The Screw’ (English National Opera)

Dance
Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company (at Sadler’s Wells)

Arts Council England - decibel Award
Daljit Nagra for ‘Look We Have Coming To Dover!’

The Times Breakthrough Award
Jennifer Pike

Outstanding Achievement Award
J.K. Rowling