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Two high-profile lesbians have been given honours in this year’s New Year Honour’s List.

Director Phyllida Lloyd and artist Maggi Hambling have both been given the CBE in recognition of their achievements in the arts.
Lloyd, 52, was recognised for her services to drama. She has worked extensively with the National Theatre, Royal Court and Bristol Old Vic theatres, but is best known for her work on Mamma Mia!, which she directed on the West End stage in 1999 and then took to Broadway. She also directed the film – her first – starring Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan and Julie Walters, which went on to be the biggest grossing British film of all time.

Hambling receives the CBE for services to art. The 64-year-old painter and sculptor is known for her public memorials to Oscar Wilde, near Charing Cross station in London, and composer Benjamin Britten in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, as well as a series of portraits of her friend George Melly, the jazz musician.

Another gay member of the arts world to be honoured this year is Nicholas Hytner, director of the National Theatre, who receives a knighthood. In other fields of achievement, Supt Christine Rudson-Wadsworth, head of operation at Warwickshire Police, gains an MBE. In 2005, she helped set up the Force Rainbow Employee Network, a support service for LGBT police staff.

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