Channel 4’s hilarious, stereotypical sitcom about an all-female, Muslim punk band has won the comedy award at the UK’s most eclectic art awards.
The South Bank Sky Arts Awards are unusual in that they reward the full spectrum of the arts, including pop, opera, television and literature.
The winners of 2022 were announced on Sunday, and We Are Lady Parts won the comedy award from a list that also included Rose Matafeo’s BBC One sitcom Starstruck and Sophie Willan’s Alma’s Not Normal on BBC Two.
Other winners of the awards ceremony at the Savoy Hotel in London were Leeds-based Opera North, rapper Little Simz and novelist Monica Ali.
Producer John Pocock and actors Faith Omole, Sarah Kameela Impey and Jessica Gunning after picking up the award for best comedy for We Are Lady Parts. Photo: David M Benett / Getty Images for Sky Arts
The awards are a Sky Arts reboot of the South Bank Show awards that were part of ITV’s programming until it controversially canceled Melvyn Bragg’s long art series.
Bragg’s series now also runs on Sky Arts, with Frank Skinner, Helen Mirren and Carlos Acosta his next tracks.
“While a lot of things around us seem to be getting worse, the arts in this country continue to grow,” Bragg said.
We Are Lady Parts is the creation of writer and director Nida Manzoor and tells the story of a punk band called Lady Parts: “crafting,” they tell viewers, “a confusing mix of hash anthems and bitter girl power One part boredom, two parts identity crisis. “
The program aired as a pilot in 2018 before being commissioned as a six-part series.
Nathaniel Curtis, Russell T Davies and Omari Douglas with the award for It’s A Sin, which won the television drama award, at the South Bank Sky Arts Awards at The Savoy in London. Photography: Ian West / PA
It has been wonderfully reviewed. “Truly, this is the British-Asian comedy series you’ve been waiting for throughout your lifetime hungry for performances,” Chitra Ramaswamy wrote in The Guardian. “And yes, I’m going here to my own young self.”
The New Yorker has praised him for taking advantage of so many aspects of the British Muslim experience “that goes beyond pure representation and into a fully developed, rich and silly world where jokes land as sharp as the G chords.”
The show stars Anjana Vasan, Sarah Kameela Impey, Faith Omole, Juliette Motamed and Lucie Shorthouse as a band and their veiled, vaping and grumpy manager.
In November last year, Channel 4 announced that it had commissioned a second season.
Channel 4 was also number one in the television drama category with Russell T Davies’ drama about the gay community in London in the 1980s, It’s a Sin, winning ahead of Time and Obstetrics and Gynecology’s comedy Adam Kay, This Is Going to Hurt. which were both shown on the BBC.
It comes after It’s a Sin garnered most of the nominations for the Bafta TV awards this year, but it came out empty-handed.
Monica Ali, who won the literature prize. Photography: Ian West / PA
An exceptional success award was given to Tamara Rojo, for her 10 years of transformation much appreciated as artistic director of the English National Ballet. He will soon hold the same job at the San Francisco Ballet.
The pop award went to British rapper Little Simz for her fourth album Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, praised by the Observer for her “mind-boggling brilliance”.
James Graham’s play at Young Vic, Best of Enemies, based on the 1968 television debate between Gore Vidal and William F Buckley, won the theater award.
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The other winners were Michael Armitage (visual arts) for his show at the Royal Academy of Arts; Monica Ali (literature) for her novel Love Marriage; Wayne McGregor’s choreography The Dante Project (dance) for the Royal Ballet; Opera North’s Rigoletto (opera); Rebecca Hall’s Passing (film); and Symphony no. 2 by Huw Watkins (classical music) performed by Hallé.
Eddie Izzard presented an innovative award to Liz Kingsman for her One-Woman Show at the Soho Theater.
The ceremony will air on Sky Arts, now a free channel, on Wednesday, July 13 at 10 p.m.
Philip Edgar-Jones, director of Sky Arts, said the channel was “committed to supporting the arts for years to come, whatever life throws at us.”