AND the award for services to arts coverage on ITV goes to… Melvyn Bragg. The South Bank Show slipped quietly away in the last week of the year with its last programme about The Royal Shakespeare Company.

But that’s not quite the end of the longrunning show, fronted by Melvyn Bragg for the past 32 years.

Come May and June, he’ll be presenting ten programmes called The South Bank Revisited, in which he will be joined by the likes of Sir Paul McCartney and Andrew Lloyd Webber to revisit shows he made about them.

Before that come The South Bank Show Awards, which take place on Tuesday at London’s Dorchester Hotel. Highlights of the prize-giving, now in its 14th year, will be shown on ITV the following Sunday.

“It will be strange to see the awards come to an end,” Bragg admits. The 70- year-old presenter and author of more than 30 books, is sad about the awards’ demise because of what they stand for.

“It’s the only awards in the whole world, and God knows how many awards there are all over the world, devoted solely to the arts – and we’ve devoted it to the British arts, so it deserves a proper use of the word unique.”

The annual ceremony aims to recognise trailblazers from across the cultural spectrum, with 14 categories including theatre, dance, visual art and music.

In keeping with the programme, which has always aimed to break down the barriers of high art and popular culture, this year’s nominees are a diverse bunch.

The E4 comedy The Inbetweeners, which follows the puerile pursuits of four teenagers and features a vast amount of creative swearing, is nominated in the television category with Armando Ianucci’s political comedy The Thick Of It and Home Time, a BBC series about a 29-yearold forced to move back in with her parents.

Diversity, the hip-hop dance troupe that won Britain’s Got Talent last year, is nominated alongside ballet acts David SATURDAY, JANUARY 23, 2010 northernecho.co.uk TV & ENTERTAINMENT 23 YOUNG PRETENDER: James Buckley, as a young Del Trotter, with David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst Bank Show representatives. He’s proud to be impartial.

“I’m not on the judging panel, I’ve just learnt who is on the shortlist and I won’t know the winner until a few hours before the event. I don’t do favourites – just like I don’t invest in West End shows.”

The awards work well as an extension to the programme, which also has a reputation for picking interesting artists and exploring their work in more detail.

While Bragg is careful not to flag up his favourites (“I’ve interviewed almost 800 people so do you want me to offend 799 of them?”) notable interviews include the very first broadcast about Sir Paul McCartney, an enlightening film on late artist Francis Bacon, and a piece on feminist writer Germaine Greer.

BRAGG puts the success of the show and the willingness of artists to be featured down to two things.

“The show has got a good reputation for well-made films and I also think we examine the artists work and not their private life,” he says. “We don’t try to trip them up, I don’t see any point in that, we collaborate with them, we don’t try to knock them down in a silly, juvenile way. We respect the people that we take on board.”

To many, the axing of The South Bank Show and its awards signals a death knell for cultural programming and its positive impact on the arts. Fewer artists appearing on TV could have a detrimental effect on arts’ patronage.

But Bragg’s optimistic about the future. BBC2 has asked him to do a series onclass and culture, as well as a one-off on the King James Bible.

“So that’s a start and then let’s just see what happens. I had a good lunch with Alan Yentob, creative director at the BBC, yesterday, I’m in no great rush. I’m at ITV until July or something but the BBC came up straight away and it was very nice of them and there’s chats going on around the place.”

■ The South Bank Show Awards take place on Tuesday and will be broadcast on ITV1 on January 31.