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Critics' Circle Award For Distinguished Service To The Arts
Each year since 1988 The Critics' Circle has presented an award for Distinguished Service to the Arts, voted for by all members of the Circle, embracing Dance, Drama, Film, Music, Visual Arts and Architecture. This performing arts Award takes the form of an engraved crystal rose bowl, presented at a celebratory luncheon. Recipients * 1988 Sir Peter Hall * 1989 Dame Ninette de Valois * 1990 Sir Michael Tippett * 1991 Sir David Lean * 1992 Sir John Mills * 1993 Sir Peter Ustinov * 1994 Sir John Drummond * 1995 Sir Peter Wright * 1996 Sir Richard Eyre * 1997 Dame Judi Dench * 1998 Sir Edward Downes * 1999 Harold Pinter * 2000 Dame Alicia Markova * 2001 Paul Scofield * 2002 Alfred Brendel * 2003 Sir Ian McKellen * 2004 Mike Leigh * 2005 Alan Bennett * 2006 Dame Helen Mirren * 2007 Sir Tom Stoppard * 2008 Peter Brook * 2009 Sir Alan Ayckbourn * 2010 Ken Loach * 2011 Stephen Sondheim * 2012 Five Centenary Awards were given to Sir Nicholas Serota, Sir Peter Wright, Sir ...
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The Critics' Circle
The Critics' Circle is the national professional body of British critics for books, drama, film, music, dance, visual arts and architecture. It was established in 1913 as a successor to the defunct Society of Dramatic Critics, formed in 1906. The association is analogous to the 1974 American Theatre Critics Association, but broader in scope. Awards The Critics’ Circle Awards are claimed to be unique, decided by the country’s most experienced professional arts journalists and critics on the basis of hearing the widest range of performances across the UK and Ireland.Music Awards 2023
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Theatre and film

For many years the Circle gave no awards. In 1980 the members of the Film Section, known also as the

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Mike Leigh
Mike Leigh (born 20 February 1943) is an English screenwriter, producer, director and former actor with a film, theatre, and television career spanning more than 60 years. His accolades include prizes at the Cannes Film Festival, the Berlin International Film Festival, and the Venice International Film Festival, three BAFTA Awards, and nominations for seven Academy Awards. He also received the BAFTA Fellowship in 2014, and was appointed an Order of the British Empire, Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1993 Birthday Honours for services to the film industry. Leigh studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), the Camberwell School of Art, the Central School of Art and Design and the London Film School, London School of Film Technique. His short-lived acting career included the role of a mute in the 1963 ''Maigret (1960 TV series), Maigret'' episode "The Flemish Shop". He began working as a theatre director and playwright in the mid-1960s, before tran ...
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Nicholas Hytner
Sir Nicholas Robert Hytner ( ; born 7 May 1956) is an English theatre director, film director, and film producer. He was previously the Artistic Director of London's National Theatre. His major successes as director include ''Miss Saigon'', '' The History Boys'' and '' One Man, Two Guvnors''. He is also known for directing films such as '' The Madness of King George'' (1994), ''The Crucible'' (1996), '' The History Boys'' (2006), and '' The Lady in the Van'' (2015). Hytner was knighted in the 2010 New Year Honours for services to drama by Queen Elizabeth II. Early life and education Hytner was born in the prosperous suburbs of south Manchester in 1956,Andrew Dickson"A life in theatre: Nicholas Hytner" ''The Guardian'', 16 October 2010. Retrieved 28 October 2012. to barrister Benet Hytner and his wife, Joyce.Paul Harris"A Knight At The Theater – But Just Call Him Nick" ''Jewish Telegraph ''. Retrieved 28 October 2012. He is the eldest child of four, and has described his upbr ...
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Grayson Perry
Sir Grayson Perry (born 24 March 1960) is an English artist. He is known for his ceramic vases, tapestries, and cross-dressing, as well as his observations of the contemporary arts scene, and for dissecting British "prejudices, fashions and foibles". Perry's vases have classical forms and are decorated in bright colours, depicting subjects at odds with their attractive appearance. There is a strong autobiographical element in his work, in which images of Perry as Claire, his female alter ego, and Alan Measles, his childhood teddy bear, often appear. He has made a number of documentary television programmes and has curated exhibitions. He has published two autobiographies, ''Grayson Perry: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl'' (2007) and ''The Descent of Man'' (2016), written and illustrated a graphic novel, ''Cycle of Violence'' (2012), written a book about art, ''Playing to the Gallery'' (2014), and published his illustrated ''Sketchbooks'' (2016). Various books describing hi ...
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Danny Boyle
Daniel Francis Boyle (born 20 October 1956) is an English director and producer. He is known for his work on the films ''Shallow Grave (1994 film), Shallow Grave'' (1994), ''Trainspotting (film), Trainspotting'' (1996) and its sequel ''T2 Trainspotting'' (2017), ''The Beach (film), The Beach'' (2000), ''28 Days Later'' (2002), ''Sunshine (2007 film), Sunshine'' (2007), ''Slumdog Millionaire'' (2008), ''127 Hours'' (2010), ''Steve Jobs (film), Steve Jobs'' (2015), and ''Yesterday (2019 film), Yesterday'' (2019). Boyle's debut film ''Shallow Grave'' won the BAFTA Award for Outstanding British Film, BAFTA Award for Best British Film. The British Film Institute ranked ''Trainspotting'' the BFI Top 100 British films, 10th greatest British film of the 20th century. Boyle's 2008 crime drama film ''Slumdog Millionaire'', the most successful British film of the decade, was nominated for ten Academy Awards and won eight, including the Academy Award for Best Director. He won the Golden G ...
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Max Stafford-Clark
Maxwell Robert Guthrie Stewart "Max" Stafford-Clark (born 17 March 1941) is a British theatre director. Life and career Stafford-Clark was born in Cambridge, the son of David Stafford-Clark, a physician, and Dorothy Crossley (née Oldfield). He was educated at Felsted School, in Essex, and Riverdale Country School in New York City, followed by Trinity College, Dublin. His directing career began as Associate Director of the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in 1966. He became artistic director there from 1968 to 1970. He was Director of the Traverse Theatre Workshop Company from 1970 to 1974. Stafford-Clark then co-founded the Joint Stock Theatre Company in 1974. Joint Stock worked with writers using company research to inspire workshops. From these workshops, writers such as David Hare, Howard Brenton and Caryl Churchill would garner material to inspire a writing phase before rehearsals began. This methodology is sometimes referred to as The Joint Stock Method. Productions durin ...
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Colin Davis
Sir Colin Rex Davis (25 September 1927 – 14 April 2013) was an English conductor, known for his association with the London Symphony Orchestra, having first conducted it in 1959. His repertoire was broad, but among the composers with whom he was particularly associated were Mozart, Berlioz, Elgar, Sibelius, Stravinsky and Tippett. Davis studied as a clarinetist, but was intent on becoming a conductor. After struggling as a freelance conductor from 1949 to 1957, he gained a series of appointments with orchestras including the BBC Scottish Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. He also held the musical directorships of Sadler's Wells Opera and the Royal Opera House, where he was principal conductor for over fifteen years. His guest conductorships included the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic and the Staatskapelle Dresden, among many others. As a teacher, Davis held posts at the Royal Academy of Music ...
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Nicholas Serota
Sir Nicholas Andrew Serota (born 27 April 1946) is a British art historian and curator. He has been chairman of Arts Council England since February 2017. Serota was director of the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, then director of the Whitechapel Gallery, London, and then director of the Tate from 1988 to 2017. He was also chairman of the Turner Prize jury until 2007. Early life Born and raised in a Jewish household in Hampstead, North London, the only son of Stanley Serota, a civil engineer, and Beatrice Katz Serota, a civil servant, later a life peer and Labour Minister for Health in Harold Wilson's government and local government ombudsman. His younger sister, Judith Serota, who also works in the arts, is married to Francis Pugh. Serota was educated at Haberdashers' Aske's School (where he became school captain) and then studied economics at Christ's College, Cambridge, before switching to history of art. He completed a master's degree at the Courtauld Institute of Art ...
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Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim (; March22, 1930November26, 2021) was an American composer and lyricist. Regarded as one of the most important figures in 20th-century musical theater, he is credited with reinventing the American musical. He received List of awards and nominations received by Stephen Sondheim, numerous accolades, including eight Tony Awards, an Academy Award, eight Grammy Awards, an Olivier Award, and the Pulitzer Prize. He was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1982, and awarded the Kennedy Center Honor in 1993 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015. Sondheim was mentored at an early age by Oscar Hammerstein II and later frequently collaborated with Harold Prince and James Lapine. His Broadway theatre, Broadway musicals tackle themes that range beyond the genre's traditional subjects, while addressing darker elements of the human experience. His music and lyrics are tinged with complexity, sophistication, and ambivalence about various aspects of li ...
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Ken Loach
Kenneth Charles Loach (born 17 June 1936) is a retiredhttps://variety.com/2024/film/global/ken-loach-retirement-the-old-oak-jonathan-glazer-oscars-speech-1235956589/ English filmmaker. His socially critical directing style and socialist views are evident in his film treatment of social issues such as poverty (''Poor Cow'', 1967), homelessness (''Cathy Come Home'', 1966), and labour rights ('' Riff-Raff'', 1991, and '' The Navigators'', 2001). Loach's film '' Kes'' (1969) was voted the seventh greatest British film of the 20th century in a poll by the British Film Institute. Two of his films, '' The Wind That Shakes the Barley'' (2006) and '' I, Daniel Blake'' (2016), received the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, making him one of only ten filmmakers to win the award twice. He also holds the record for the most films screened in the main competition at Cannes with 15. Early life Kenneth Charles Loach was born in Nuneaton, Warwickshire on 17 June 1936, the son of Vivien ( ...
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Alan Ayckbourn
Sir Alan Ayckbourn (born 12 April 1939) is a prolific British playwright and director. As of 2025, he has written and produced 90 full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where all but four of his plays have received their first performance. More than 40 have subsequently been produced in the West End, at the Royal National Theatre or by the Royal Shakespeare Company since his first hit '' Relatively Speaking'' opened at the Duke of York's Theatre in 1967. Major successes include '' Absurd Person Singular'' (1972), '' The Norman Conquests'' trilogy (1973), '' Absent Friends'' (1974), ''Bedroom Farce'' (1975), ''Just Between Ourselves'' (1976), '' A Chorus of Disapproval'' (1984), '' Woman in Mind'' (1985), '' A Small Family Business'' (1987), '' Man of the Moment'' (1988), ''House'' & ''Garden'' (1999) and '' Private Fears in Public Places'' (2004). His plays have won numer ...
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Peter Brook
Peter Stephen Paul Brook (21 March 1925 – 2 July 2022) was an English theatre and film director. He worked first in England, from 1945 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, from 1947 at the Royal Opera House, and from 1962 for the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). With them, he directed the first English-language production in 1964 of ''Marat/Sade'' by Peter Weiss, which was transferred to Broadway theatre, Broadway in 1965 and won the Tony Award for Best Play, and Brook was named Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play, Best Director. He also directed films such as an iconic version of ''Lord of the Flies (1963 film), Lord of the Flies'' in 1963. Brook was based in France from the early 1970s, where he founded an international theatre company, playing in developing countries, in an approach of great simplicity. He was often referred to as "our greatest living theatre director". He won multiple Emmy Awards, a Laurence Olivier Award, the Japanese Praemium Imperiale, the Prix It ...
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