Every time the Baftas come around, I admit, I get swept up in the hype (I definitely don’t print out the list of nominations and put asterisks next to my favourites…). Every time I am also disappointed, as none of my favourites ever win, with the evening normally topped off by EastEnders emerging victorious over the far superior Coronation Street (my theory is that the voters are just scared that Phil Mitchell’s going to come round to their houses and grunt them to death). You can thus imagine my surprise when this year’s results were almost uniformly spot-on. It’s almost as if someone at Bafta found one of my lists…
The main victor was the staggering Appropriate Adult – an intense, poignant and at times, uncomfortable ITV drama centring on Fred West. While it missed out on the mini-series prize (though I would question whether two episodes was enough to qualify as a mini-series – perhaps a new award for not-quite-so single drama?), it did scoop three of the four acting accolades. Dominic West’s breath-taking portrayal of the other Mr West was always a deserved shoe-in, so it was perhaps more exciting that the equally brilliant Emily Watson and Monica Dolan won the actress awards, with the former displaying extraordinary emotional range, and the latter embodying the role of Rose West to terrifying perfection.
The drama series award also saw justice being served, as BBC Three’s horror series The Fades emerged triumphant. Fingers crossed, this will be enough to convince the BBC to reverse their brutal decision to axe the show. Not that I’m bitter or anything.
And was I the only one thrilled that Mrs Brown’s Boys won best sitcom? The humour may not be high-brow enough for the critics, but at least you get a Guinness-truckload of belly laughs from it. The other nominees were all strong, but none of them have the capacity to make you roll around laughing in the same way that an Irish man, dressed as a woman, effing his way around a grand total of three sets does.
In the biggest injustice of the night, neither Tom Hollander (Rev) nor Brendan O’Carroll (Mrs Brown’s Boys) won the male comedy performance award, with that honour instead going to Darren Boyd, who, as usual, played Darren Boyd in Spy.
On a more positive note, Jennifer Saunders was given the female equivalent award for her turn in Absolutely Fabulous, which made a sensational return at Christmas. The scene-stealing likes of Joanna Lumley and Jane Horrocks mean that it’s very easy to overlook Saunders’ performance, so it was lovely to see her recognised. And she used an AbFab in-joke at the end of her speech which just made my night.
There were far too many awards given out for me to possibly go through them all here, but other victors included: Sherlock’s Andrew Scott for best supporting cctor (in my mind, best over-actor would have been more appropriate); the lightly-dusted delight that is The Great British Bake-Off; and the royal wedding, or rather the BBC’s coverage of it, which won the award for best sport and live event. A cynic would point out, of course, that before this year, the award was just for sport.
Overall, it truly was an exceptionally accurate year for the Baftas, and they also provided an answer to a question that, I’m sure, has bothered many of us: Who would win in a fight between Birgitte Nyborg and Sarah Lund? To top the evening off, Coronation Street emerged triumphant over the EastEnders team, who subsequently looked about as happy as, well, Phil Mitchell.