BAFTA Television Awards - The Winners!

by Helen Langdon

Following on from the TV Craft Awards a couple of weeks ago, Sunday night saw the Arqiva BAFTA TV Awards.  In a night filled with glitz and glamour, the best of British TV was celebrated in London. Sadly, the night didn’t feature Sarah Millican taking on last year’s Twitter trolls by defying social convention and (gasp) wearing the same dress twice. Read her words here. 

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Proving the strength of current British television, the awards weren’t dominated by any one show, although Broadchurch did walk away with three BAFTAs, including the award for Best Drama Series. David Bradley won Best Supporting Actor for his role as Jack Marshall, and to no-one’s surprise but her own, Olivia Colman picked up her third BAFTA in two years. Her performance in Broadchurch gained her the BAFTA for Leading Actress.

A change in the rules this year made programmes screened online eligible for awards, meaning that Breaking Bad could walk away with the award for Best International Show. This change in the rules also means that BBC Three will still be eligible after it’s withdrawn from broadcast and becomes an internet-only channel. Despite this change looming on the channel’s horizon, two BBC Three shows walked away with awards, with In the Flesh winning Best Mini-Series and Best Sitcom for Him & Her: The Wedding. In the Flesh was also another type of triumph for the BBC. Creator and writer Dominic Mitchell was discovered by the BBC Writersroom, the BBC’s open script submission system.

The IT Crowd’s final episode might not have won for Best Sitcom, but two of its three leads took the awards for Best Male and Female Comedy Performance (Richard Ayoade and Katherine Parkinson). Channel 4 came away with eight awards in total, a haul matched only by ITV. One of ITV’s awards was Coronation Street’s award for Soap and Continuing Drama, which has drawn acclaim this year for its storyline involving Hayley Cropper’s cancer and suicide.

The Radio Times Audience Award, the only audience-chosen award, went to Doctor Who for The Day of the Doctor. The Special Award was awarded to Cilla Black in honour of her 50-year career, although Black did say that she was baffled by the award. She’d been content with the award the production team of Blind Date received 20 years ago.

Full list of winners –

Leading Actor – Sean Harris, Southcliffe

Leading Actress – Olivia Colman, Broadchurch

Supporting Actor – David Bradley, Broadchurch

Supporting Actress – Sarah Lancashire, Last Tango in Halifax

Entertainment Performance – Ant and Dec, Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway

Male Performance in a Comedy Programme – Richard Ayoade, The IT Crowd

Female Performance in a Comedy Programme – Katherine Parkinson, The IT Crowd

Single Drama – Complicit

Mini-Series – In the Flesh

Drama Series – Broadchurch     

Soap and Continuing Drama – Coronation Street              

International – Breaking Bad

Factual Series – Bedlam

Specialist Factual – David Attenborough's Natural History Museum Alive

Single Documentary – The Murder Trial

Features – Long Lost Family

Reality and Constructed Factual – Gogglebox

Current Affairs – Dispatches – Syria: Across the Lines

News Coverage – ITV News at Ten: Woolwich Attacks

Sport and Live Event – The Ashes 2013, First Test, Day Five

Entertainment Programme – Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway

Comedy and Comedy Entertainment Programme – A League of Their Own

Situation Comedy – Him & Her: The Wedding

Radio Times Audience Award – Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor

Special Award – Cilla Black

BAFTA Fellowship – Julie Walters

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