British dramas take top honours
BRITISH dramas and
were the big winners at the Bafta television awards.
Sarah Lancashire, picture was named best leading actress for her portrayal of no-nonsense Sergeant Catherine Cawood in the swansong of Sally Wainwright’s Yorkshire-set thriller.
Cawood’s final kitchen showdown with James Norton’s Tommy Lee Royce in the series also won the P&O Cruises memorable moment award.
Gang drama Top Boy was named best drama series, while Jasmine Jobson was named best supporting actress for her role as Jaq Lawrence in the series about the lives of two drug dealers on a Hackney estate.
Matthew Macfadyen won the supporting actor category for the final series of Succession, the conclusion of the drama about the struggle for power in a media dynasty, but the actor who played the ambitious Tom Wambsgans was not at the ceremony.
Timothy Spall took home the leading actor Bafta for true crime series The Sixth Commandment, about the deaths of Peter Farquhar and Ann Moore-Martin in a quiet Buckinghamshire village.
The veteran star said: “Acting is a stupid thing, it’s a soppy old thing, standing up pretending to be someone and p ****** 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 them 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.”
The drama also won the limited series Bafta.
Strictly Come Dancing won the best entertainment prize in its 20th year on the air.
Awards hosts Rob Beckett and Romesh Ranganathan looked bashful when their show Rob And Romesh VS won the comedy entertainment Bafta, while Mawaan Rizwan won the award for best male performance in a comedy for his role in Juice, about a young gay man who desperately wants to be the centre of attention, but his family keep stealing his thunder.
Former Play School children’s presenter Baroness Floella Benjamin was presented with Bafta’s highest honour, the Fellowship, by newsreader Clive Myrie.