New plays compete with classic in final South Bank Show Awards

Published 8 January 2010

Jerusalem, The Habit Of Art and the Donmar Warehouse production of A Streetcar Named Desire will contest the theatre category in the final South Bank Show Awards.

The two new plays – Butterworth’s Jerusalem, which began life at the Royal Court and transfers to the West End this month, and Bennett’s The Habit Of Art, which is currently playing at the National Theatre – are nominated alongside Tennessee Williams’s classic, which was revived at the Donmar Warehouse in July 2009 starring Rachel Weisz and Eliot Cowan.

Also nominated in this year’s awards is playwright Lucy Prebble, whose play Enron transfers to the Noël Coward theatre this month after a successful run at the Royal Court last year. Prebble will contest The Times Breakthrough Award, a category which contains nominations from across the arts.

English National Opera’s production of Peter Grimes and Wayne McGregor’s Limen at the Royal Opera House are also nominated in the Opera and Dance categories.

The annual South Bank Show Awards, held in the name of the long-running ITV arts programme, celebrate the best of British talent across the arts. This year’s ceremony will be the last, as the Melvyn Bragg-hosted TV show recently aired its final programme.

The winners will be announced in a ceremony hosted by Bragg at The Dorchester on 26 January, with Sir Ian McKellen presenting The Times Breakthrough Award. It will air on ITV1 on 31 January.

CB

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