“Lear Alone offers us a vision of theatre in the post-pandemic age. Yes, that’s partly about its demonstration of innovative ways to film and stream theatrical content – taking the action outdoors, making dramatic the objects and sounds of street life. But it’s also about its engagement with live political issues.”
So wrote Calum Jacobs, the winner of the Observer/ Anthony Burgess prize for arts journalism 2022, in his review of Lear Alone, a web film series in which actor Edmund Dehn wanders London’s lockdown streets performing only the lines of King Lear from Shakespeare’s tragedy. It’s the perfect Burgess prize subject, a piece of art that engages with a particular moment in time and subtly reframes its form.
Entries are now open for the tenth award. During the past decade the judges have received and read more than 1,500 reviews from budding critics on subjects ranging from blockbuster art exhibitions to innovative Twitter accounts, stadium pop shows to contemporary sonnets.
The prize – £3,000 for the winner, £500 each for two runners-up – was set up to honour the author and critic Anthony Burgess’s 30-year association with the Observer (“my paper”, as he called it) and in the spirit of Burgess’s roving intellect, there is no restriction on the subject matter for review. The winning piece could be about an album, book, concert, exhibition, film, live stream, television show or anything else that offers the opportunity to write a lively and thoughtful piece.
This year’s guest judge is the Observer’s classical music critic, Fiona Maddocks, alongside arts editor Sarah Donaldson and Will Carr, deputy director of the International Anthony Burgess Foundation.
The small print: entries must be unpublished reviews of new work, up to a maximum of 800 words (we cannot consider longer pieces). “New work” comprises anything that has been produced, published or broadcast since 1 September 2021 and we welcome entries from anyone, from established writers and critics to complete beginners. You have plenty of time: the closing date for entries is 30 November 2022. Channel Burgess himself, who was renowned for filing his copy punctually and once praised deadlines as “a fine substitute for a genuinely literary urge”.
For more information, or to submit an entry, visit anthonyburgess.org. The winner will be announced at an awards ceremony in February 2023
Read entries by past winners and runners-up here.