BAFTA: Winners include Netflix's Top Boy and Happy Valley
ITV News' Entertainment Reporter Rishi Davda reports from the BAFTA red carpet
British dramas Happy Valley, Top Boy and The Sixth Commandment were the big winners at the coveted BAFTA awards.
Sarah Lancashire was named best leading actress for her portrayal of no-nonsense Sergeant Catherine Cawood in the swansong of Sally Wainwright’s Yorkshire-set thriller.
Meanwhile drama Top Boy was named best drama series, with Jasmine Jobson named best supporting actress for her role as Jaq Lawrence in the series about the lives of two drug dealers on a Hackney estate.
Timothy Spall wins leading actor for The Sixth Commandment
The veteran actor said: “I didn’t actually write anything down. Look it all up on IMDB and you will see who was involved because to each and every soul of them, they are brilliant.
“Acting is a stupid thing, it’s a soppy old thing, standing up pretending to be someone and pissing around in costume.
“Sixty-seven and you think ‘am I still doing this?’
“But sometimes you get the chance to play people that have had a terrible thing happen to then and all they wanted was love, and it’s a beautiful thing to be able to tell a story about that. It’s about crimes but it’s also about love.
“And when it makes a difference and we can all share in the human condition, some of it horrible and some of it beautiful and even though acting is a silly stupid thing, its lovely,”
Looking at his award, he said: “I’ve always wanted one of these. I’m just so pleased to be amongst you lot.”
Sarah Lancashire wins leading actress for Happy Valley
She said: “Thank you Bafta, it’s an honour. I would like to acknowledge my fellow nominees and their tremendous work.
“Sally Wainwright, I shall forever be grateful to you for this opportunity,” Lancashire added, praising the writer of the crime drama set in West Yorkshire.
“I feel very, very privileged to have been surrounded by these brilliant actors and I thank each and every one of you.”
Lancashire also thanked the BBC’s chief content officer Charlotte Moore and the broadcaster “for giving this very British drama a very British home”.
Top Boy wins best drama series
Producer Charles Steel paid tribute to stars Ashley Walters and Kane Robinson.
Jasmine Jobson, who won best supporting actress in the awards, added: “I just want to say I am the woman who has been standing in a group full of men, you have shown me what it is to be strong and independent and how important it is to stand out in a crowd full of people where it’s easy to be invisible.
“Netflix, Top Boy, you changed my life.”
Matthew Macfadyen has won the best supporting actor Bafta for Succession, but is not in attendance at the ceremony.
Ellie Simmonds wins best single documentary for Ellie Simmonds: Finding My Secret Family on ITV
Paralympic champion Ellie Simmonds said “there’s so many people out there that need adoption, and need love, and need families” as she collected the TV award.
The “shocked” gold-medallist said: “First of all, I want to say thank you to my parents, my mum and dad, and I wouldn’t be here without them and adopting me and also adopting my four other siblings and fostering as well. I love you."
Strictly Come Dancing wins the best entertainment BAFTA
Collecting the gong, Strictly host Tess Daly said: “We are properly and genuinely overwhelmed.
“Thank you Bafta for making it worth putting on Spanx on the hottest day of the year.
“We have been on for 20 years, so this is the best birthday present.”
White Nanny, Black Child wins the specialist factual prize
Director Andy Mundy-Castle became emotional on stage as he collected the gong for White Nanny, Black Child, saying: “This has been a tough, tough place to break into, I come from a council estate in Brixton.
“Oh god, am I the first one to cry?
“I’ve dreamed for many years about being on this stage.
“I just want to say to people who come from the same background as me, keep on dreaming, keep on working, keep on getting into good trouble.”
Such Brave Girls wins scripted comedy series
Creator and star Kat Sadler said: “Writing is really hard and this is really nice, so thank you.
“I started writing this show when I was under section in hospital and I told Lizzie (Davidson, her sister and co-star) and she told me she was in 20 grand’s worth of debt and we both laughed and that is where the show started.”
Lockerbie wins best factual series
Accepting the award, director John Dower said: “Our story is such a horrific one, 270 murdered and they were just travelling home for Christmas.”
He added that he wanted to thank the individuals who “let us make the film we wanted to make and that doesn’t happen much anymore”.
Squid Game: The Challenge has won the reality BAFTA
The Eurovision Song Contest 2023 won the award for live event coverage.
Hannah Waddingham, who co-hosted the contest in Liverpool, accepted the trophy, saying: “The week we had this time last year was, I know for everybody here, the most exceptional, stressful week but so fabulous.”
Mawaan Rizwan wins best male performance in a comedy for his role in Juice.
Accepting the award, Rizwan said: “I want to thank the people in my life who go un-thanked; my partner, my bestie.
“I’m so not boundaried as a person, so thank you for putting up with me and giving me the support you do.”
He also thanked the team who made the series, saying: “You lot believed in me, so thank you for making that happen.”
Ending on a joke, he said: “And thank you to my therapist – we had a conversation last week where we said I had to stop relying on external forms of validation.”
Gbemisola Ikumelo wins best female performance in a comedy for her role in Black Ops.
Collecting the award, she encouraged the audience to repeat her call of “Good is good,” and said: “That is how you know diversity is working!”
She also joked her agent would be telling her next employers: “Yesterday’s price is not today’s price.”
Channel 4 News’s Inside Gaza: Israel And Hamas At War won the news coverage award.
Journalist Matt Frei dedicated the award to all the journalists who have been killed covering wars this year.
Scam Interceptors won best daytime programme, while Casualty won the award for best soap.
Accepting the award, Jon Sen, the executive producer of the long-running BBC medical drama, said: “We accept this on behalf of an amazing team back in Cardiff, the directors, the crew.
“What they do on a daily basis is astounding.
“Casualty is proud to be a continuing drama and I want to say thank you: it’s a real privilege winning one of these for doing a job you love.”
French series Class Act won the international prize at the awards, defeating US heavy hitters such as The Bear and Succession.
Meanwhile, Catherine Cawood and Tommy Lee Royce’s final kitchen showdown in BBC drama Happy Valley won the P&O Cruises memorable moment BAFTA.
The award was collected by 19-year-old actor Rhys Connah, who played Ryan Cawood in the thriller, and said he did not realise he would be on stage alone to accept the prize.
The In Memoriam section of the BAFTA TV Awards ceremony included tributes to talk show host Sir Michael Parkinson, Strictly Come Dancing professional Robin Windsor, journalist Emily Morgan, Line Of Duty’s Brian McCardie, Dad’s Army star Ian Lavender, Lord Of The Rings actor Bernard Hill, newsreader George Alagiah and Hairy Biker Dave Myers.
Film and TV director Roy Battersby and Friends star Matthew Perry were also featured after criticism about their omission from the memorial section of the awards in February.
Battersby, who won the Alan Clarke Award for outstanding contribution to television in 1996 and died in January aged 87, was honoured after his actress stepdaughter Kate Beckinsale publicly called for his inclusion.
Sunday night’s segment concluded with Perry, who died aged 54 in October, and starred in films including Fools Rush In (1997), The Whole Nine Yards (2000) and its sequel, The Whole Ten Yards (2004), and 17 Again (2009).
Lorraine Kelly has been presented with the special award by Succession star Brian Cox.
She paid tribute to her husband Steve and daughter Rosie, who is pregnant with her first child, saying: “I’m on the telly tomorrow but I’m going to celebrate tonight.”
She said “don’t pull up the ladder” - to those from working-class backgrounds to break into the TV industry, as she was presented with a special award at the ceremony.
Brian Cox presented the award to the “queen of daytime TV”, who has hosted ITV chat show Lorraine for the past 30 years.
“I suppose if I’ve learned anything at all over the past 40 years, it’s what’s the point of having all that experience if you don’t actually share it, and if you don’t actually pass it on, and help other people,” Kelly said on stage.
“So I would just say don’t pull up the ladder, please make it possible for kids like me from my background, from a very working class Glasgow background, rise the same from Dundee.
“We’ve had amazing opportunities, but I just want everyone to have those opportunities the same that we did.”
Joe Lycett has collected the entertainment performance award for his Channel 4 show Late Night Lycett.
The comedian came on stage dressed as Queen Elizabeth I, and declared: “I lost a bet, I’m so hot and I need a p***.”
He added: “Thanks to my mum and dad, Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII.”
Mr Bates vs the Post Office has been praised at the Baftas for its “extraordinary impact”.
The ITV drama, starring actor Toby Jones as Alan Bates, documents the miscarriage of justice against hundreds of subpostmasters during the Horizon IT scandal.
The series was not eligible for nomination at this year’s Bafta Television Awards because it was broadcast in January, meaning it will be recognised at the ceremony next year.
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