In an evening of small screen glamour and theatre tradition, the Mylapore Academy’s 43rd Annual Awards Function saw veterans and stalwarts from the industry receive lifetime achievement awards.
The Sri Parthasarathy Swami Sabha Silver Rolling Trophy for lifetime achievement in Tamil dramas went to Kartik Rajagopal from Kartik Fine Arts and veterans V S Raghavan, who has acted in more than 1000 films and numerous tele-serials and dramas, and A R Srinivasan, a prominent theatre personality. M Saravanan of AVM studios and comedian, actor and theatre artiste S Ve Shekar won lifetime achievement awards for television serials and shows.
Tamil serial Saravanan Meenatchi proved to be most popular as it swept all the awards for best serial, best actor (male), best actor (female), best director and best character actor. Anchors Siva Karthikeyan and Yugi Sethu, shared the award for best entertainment show anchor.
Chief Guest G Srinivasan, chairman and managing director of United India Insurance and chairman of New India Assurance gave away the prizes and said that it was heartening to see such enthusiasm for theatre even today. He lamented the lack of entries for the awards. “The small number of entries make it difficult for the judging panel to nominate awards. I ask producers and directors to send entries.”
Nalli Kuppuswami Chetty, partner, Nalli Chinnaswami Chetty and vice president of the Mylapore Academy and R Krishnaswami, president of Federation of City Sabhas were the guests of honour.
The awards ceremony was preceded by a drama, Sangamam by Bindu Stage, which was also adjudged as the best stage play of 2011.