The South Bank Show

The South Bank Show
Genre	Arts
Presented by	Melvyn Bragg (1978–2023)
Opening theme	Variation on Paganini's "24th Caprice" by Andrew Lloyd Webber
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language	English
No. of series	45
No. of episodes	805 (+ 3 specials)
Production
Running time	60mins (inc. adverts)
Production company	LWT
Original release
Network	ITV
Release	14 January 1978 – 30 May 2010
Network	Sky Arts
Release	27 May 2012 – present

The South Bank Show is a British television arts magazine series originally produced by London Weekend Television and broadcast on ITV between 1978 and 2010. A new version of the series began 27 May 2012 on Sky Arts. Conceived, written, and presented by former BBC arts broadcaster Melvyn Bragg, the show aims to bring both high art and popular culture to a mass audience. In 2023, it was announced that Bragg would be leaving the series after 45 years.

History

ITV (1978–2010)

The programme was a replacement for Aquarius, the arts series which had been running since 1970. Presenter Melvyn Bragg was already well known for his arts broadcasting on BBC television, notably Monitor and BBC Two's The Lively Arts. It first aired on 14 January 1978, covering many subjects, including Germaine Greer, Gerald Scarfe and Paul McCartney. It is the longest continuously running arts programme on UK television. From the beginning the series' intent was to mix high art and popular culture. This has remained, and the programme has always focused predominantly on art of the 20th and 21st centuries.

For much of its life, the show was produced by London Weekend Television (LWT) for the ITV network.

In May 2009, ITV announced that the show was to come to an end. Although it was originally reported that the show was ending due to Bragg's retirement, Bragg later made it clear that he decided to leave after they ended the show, and thought ending it was a mistake; according to him, "they've killed the show, so I thought, I'll go as well."

On Monday 28 December 2009 the final ITV edition of The South Bank Show was broadcast, featuring The Royal Shakespeare Company as its subject. Melvyn Bragg announced on this programme that, after ITV's last South Bank Show Awards in January 2010, there would be a series of ten The South Bank Show Revisited programmes transmitted in early 2010, featuring updates on previous South Bank Show subjects.

The production archive for the ITV series, including unaired footage, is housed at the University of Leeds.

ITV had 33 series with 743 episodes, from 1978 until 2010.

Sky Arts (2012–present)

In July 2010, it was revealed that Bragg had bought the rights to the brand and had first right of access to The South Bank Show archives. Sky Arts broadcasts South Bank Show archive editions and hosted the South Bank Sky Arts Awards on 25 Jan 2011, presented by Melvyn Bragg, accompanied by a new arrangement of The South Bank Show theme.

Sky Arts revived The South Bank Show with a new series starting 27 May 2012.

Since 2012 most series only have around 4–6 episodes.

Theme music and visuals

The theme music is taken from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Variations composed in 1977 for his brother, the cellist Julian Lloyd Webber. This is based on the theme from Paganini's "24th Caprice". The brand image of the programme is an animated version of a detail from Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling painting, specifically the image of the Hand of God giving life to Adam. It shows the two hands meeting, generating a lightning bolt.

Subjects

There have been many subjects of the show, including:

Directors

Directors who have made editions of the programme include:

Podcast

From 18 September 2006, ITV released podcast of the interviews from the show, including extra material not included in the broadcast editions.

Awards

The programme has been awarded more than 110 awards (including 12 BAFTAs, 5 Prix Italia and 4 RTS Awards). Pat Gavin's animated title sequences have won two BAFTAs.

Parodies

The comedy series Dead Ringers often parodied The South Bank Show. It does this in a series of sketches called South Bank, a cross between The South Bank Show and the American cartoon South Park, set in the South Bank of London. In these sketches, Melvyn Bragg is Stan Marsh, Alan Yentob is Kyle Broflovski, Mark Lawson is Eric Cartman and Kenneth Branagh is Kenny McCormick.

A sketch in The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer featured Vic Reeves as Melvyn Bragg (with felt-tip marks on his face) presenting a feature on fictional folk singers Mulligan and O'Hare. Reeves depicts Bragg as an unlikely A-Team obsessive.

Harry Enfield's TV film Norbert Smith - a Life is a parody edition of The South Bank Show.

Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's second series of Extras featured a reference to a fictional episode of The South Bank Show focused on madcap children's television presenters Dick and Dom.

Private Eye tends to parody Melvyn Bragg's name, and Spitting Image would rather accentuate his nasal accent. As Spitting Image was often aired immediately before The South Bank Show, episodes would often end with a send-up of Bragg, most notably in one episode having him advise viewers to switch off their televisions to avoid watching it.

Benny Hill once parodied Bragg in a 1978 episode of The Benny Hill Show as Melvyn Dragg. The name of the show was also parodied, and it was called "The South Blank Show."

Transmission

Series	Episodes	Broadcast date		Network
		First aired	Last aired
1	24	14 January 1978	22 July 1978	ITV
2	24	26 November 1978	24 June 1979
3	19	2 December 1979	6 July 1980
4	26	9 November 1980	28 June 1981
5	27	1 November 1981	30 May 1982
6	26	17 October 1982	12 June 1983
7	23	16 October 1983	24 June 1984
8	26	7 October 1984	16 June 1985
9	24	6 October 1985	4 May 1986
10	26	5 October 1986	19 April 1987
11	25	4 October 1987	24 April 1988
12	24	25 September 1988	24 March 1989
13	25	17 September 1989	22 April 1990
14	23	2 September 1990	29 March 1991
15	25	15 September 1991	14 June 1992
16	25	4 October 1992	22 August 1993
17	26	12 September 1993	29 May 1994
18	22	18 September 1994	25 June 1995
19	20	10 September 1995	28 July 1996
20	21	15 September 1996	20 July 1997
21	22	5 October 1997	30 August 1998
22	16	8 November 1998	4 April 1999
23	21	26 September 1999	2 July 2000
24	25	1 October 2000	19 August 2001
25	19	7 October 2001	4 August 2002
26	26	13 October 2002	21 September 2003
27	13	19 October 2003	27 June 2004
28	22	22 August 2004	15 May 2005
29	19	7 August 2005	11 June 2006
30	25	10 September 2006	29 July 2007
31	19	2 September 2007	13 July 2008
32	15	13 September 2008	24 May 2009
33	21	14 September 2009	30 May 2010
34	4	28 May 2012	18 June 2012	Sky Arts
35	6	18 April 2013	23 May 2013
36	6	22 May 2014	26 June 2014
37	6	24 February 2015	15 July 2015
38	6	10 June 2016	20 July 2016
39	6	17 July 2017	27 August 2017
40	6	7 November 2018	12 December 2018
41	4	5 May 2019	6 August 2019
42	4	20 November 2020	20 December 2020
43	4	24 June 2021	15 July 2021
44	4	13 July 2022	3 August 2022
45	5	5 July 2023	29 August 2023

Specials

Special	Broadcast date	Network
British Comedy Special	14 November 1994	ITV
30th Anniversary Special	14 January 2018	Sky Arts
Vincent and Theo	30 September 2019