Winners revealed at the Sky Arts Awards

The inaugural Sky Arts Awards were hosted by Joe Lycett at the Roundhouse, London, celebrating incredible achievements across the entire spectrum of the arts. Building on the legacy of the South Bank Sky Arts Awards, the ceremony showcased the very best of British and Irish arts and culture.

Guests from the Arts world in attendance included Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, Dame Sheila Hancock, Sir Lenny Henry, Grayson Perry, Myleene Klass, Caitlin Moran, David Morrissey and Oti Mabuse. They were treated to live performances by The Darkness, who rocketed back to number one last week, multi-hyphenate artist Ren, and poet Lemn Sissay, as well as a never-before-seen ultimate rock collaboration between AC/DC’s Brian Johnson and guitarist Slash. Hip hop dance company Boy Blue performed alongside The London Philharmonic Orchestra, whilst Beverley Knight and David Harewood joined Joe Lycett and others to open the show in style.

The Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to broadcaster, author and parliamentarian Lord Melvyn Bragg. Spanning 60 years, Bragg’s broadcasting career began at the BBC in 1961 and soon afterwards he published his first novel. In the 70s Melvyn started LWT’s long-running Arts programme ‘South Bank Show’, making approximately 800 editions. Throughout his career Melvyn has presented countless Arts and Science programmes, marshalling discussion shows on BBC and writing numerous award-winning novels including ‘The Soldier’s Return’ and ‘Back in the Day’. Most recently for Sky Arts, Melvyn penned ‘Art Matters’ a passionate rallying cry to save the Arts, the film featured key figures from the Arts world discussing how Art changed their lives.

Indie rock band The Last Dinner Party took home the Popular music award. Mr Bates Vs The Post Office (Little Gem/ITV Studios) was victorious in Television category. Fern Brady won for Comedy, whilst How to Have Sex, the coming-of-age drama film written and directed by Molly Manning, took home the Film gong.

Boy Blue’s Body of Work was awarded the accolade for Dance. The Awards also celebrated emerging talent with The Times Breakthrough Award, which was presented this year to opera singer Aigul Akhmetshina.

Further wins include Ryan Calais Cameron took home the Theatre award for his Black Boys revival and Retrograde, Welsh National Opera/NoFitState’s Death In Venice won in the Opera category. Lindsey Mendick’s Shitfaced, the exhibition at Jupiter Artland, won for Visual Art and Sir James MacMillan for Classic Music for The Cumnock Tryst 2023, whilst Momtaza Mehri’s Bad Diaspora Poems and Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting were awarded the Poetry and Literature awards respectively.

All winners were presented with this year’s award, designed and made by artist and comedian Jim Moir. On creating the statuettes, Jim said: “Phil Edgar-Jones asked if I could make the awards so I showed some of my previous sculptures, one that was an homage to Eduardo Paolozzi’s ‘Cyclops’.

“I used this as inspiration for the trophies and began collecting lots of different materials, adding them onto the clay mould. The finished pieces are Bronze sculptures standing roughly 1 foot tall, they’re heavy too at four kilograms so will fit perfectly on a mantlepiece…or used as doorstop!”

Phil Edgar-Jones, Executive Director of Unscripted Originals at Sky, said: “The Sky Arts awards is a unique opportunity to bring the very best of our Art and Entertainment stars together all in one place. We passionately believe everyone should have access to the arts to enrich our lives and bring us all the joy of a better experience. Arts, culture, entertainment, music, storytelling, the visual arts – whatever you’re into we believe it’s something we do better than anywhere else in the world and at Sky Arts we will never stop banging on about how important arts and culture is… and we are thrilled that Joe Lycett is banging that drum with us.”:

The Sky Arts Awards is commissioned by Phil Edgar-Jones, Executive Director of Unscripted Originals at Sky for Cécile Frot-Coutaz,, CEO of Sky Studios & Chief Content Officer for Sky 

For further information, please contact PREMIER: skyartsawards@premiercomms.com

FULL LIST OF WINNERS: 

THEATRE: Ryan Calais Cameron 

DANCE: Boy Blue (Kenrick "H2o" Sandy MBE & Michael "Mikey J" Asante MBE) - Body of Work 

TELEVISION: Mr Bates Vs The Post Office 

OPERA: Death in Venice - WNO/NoFitState Circus 

CLASSICAL MUSIC: James MacMillan for The Cumnock Tryst 2023 

COMEDY: Fern Brady 

FILM: How to Have Sex 

VISUAL ART: Lindsey Mendick 

POETRY: Momtaza Mehri’s Bad Diaspora Poems 

LITERATURE: Paul Murray for The Bee Sting 

POPULAR MUSIC: The Last Dinner Party 

ARTS HERO: Sally Spencer

THE TIMES BREAKTHROUGH: Aigul Akhmetshina. 

Notes to editors: 

Joe Lycett has written A Manifesto for the Arts in consultation with numerous artists and arts institutions across the country. The manifesto will be unveiled at the Sky Arts Awards. You can read the full manifesto here from 7pm Tuesday September 17: https://skyartsawards.sky/manifesto