Nick Ahad: The end is nigh for one of civilisation's great champions

A week on Sunday, The South Bank Show will be on our screens for the final time.

Not in the guise that most of us would like to see it – a full and expert probing of a subject – but as the annual South Bank Show Awards.

Lord Melvyn Bragg and his superlative arts show bowed out in December, with a typically brilliant programme, which went behind the scenes of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

When the awards are shown on January 31, it will be comforting a week on Sunday to tune in and hear that oh so familiar theme tune.

Alas, it will be for the last time.

No more South Bank Show equals no more South Bank Show Awards.

At the final awards bash, held at the Dorchester Hotel in London

on Tuesday, famous faces from the world of culture queued up to stick the boot into ITV's incomprehensible decision to axe the arts programme.

The most famous of all was Prince Charles.

In a video message, played to an audience which included Peter Fincham, the director who made the decision to can the show, Prince Charles did not hold back.

He said: "…oblivion is not the place for the arts and so I cannot say I am encouraged as mainstream television abandons such a unique and special commitment.

"Civilisation needs all the help it can get, more so today than ever before, but now it loses one of its great champions."

He's not wrong.

Bragg was always prepared to confront the difficult and the challenging and without him some of this country's brightest and best talents will

miss out.

Among them Chris Morris. The man behind Brass Eye, saw his debut film screen at the Sundance Film Festival at the weekend.

Four Lions, partly filmed in Sheffield and part produced by the city's own Warp Films, is a satirical look at the subject of suicide bombers. Yes, you read that correctly.

When the film is released in Britain, there is going to be outcry.

The brilliant Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, the creators of Peep Show who have had a hand in the script for Four Lions, admitted at a Q&A following the Sundance screening: "Obviously, we don't want to be killed," when asked about the unavoidable controversy.

Even if it is awful, and early reviews suggest very much the opposite, the point is that Chris Morris should be praised for his efforts.

Art shines brightest when its light is directed into our darkest corners. And Morris's torch blazes.

If only there was a show, maybe something like the South Bank Show, to highlight the importance of what Morris is doing.