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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Entertainment
Ekin Karasin

Adolescence and Celebrity Traitors triumph at Bafta TV Awards

Adolescence completed its winning streak through awards season as it won top prizes at the Bafta Television Awards, where Celebrity Traitors also triumphed.

The hit Netflix drama, about a teenage boy accused of a terrible crime, was named best limited drama, while stars Stephen Graham, Christine Tremarco and Owen Cooper all won awards.

Graham was named best leading actor, while Tremarco won the supporting actress prize and Cooper won supporting actor.

Graham, who co-wrote the script with Jack Thorne, has won a string of awards for his performance in the Netflix series but never won a Bafta.

Stephen Graham (Ian West/PA)
Owen Cooper (Ian West/PA)

Speaking on stage, he said: “I might take my time. I’ve been nominated eight times and this is the first time I’ve won.

“Nice one Bafta, this is lovely.

“When I was a kid, I watched a telly programme called Scully, written by Alan Bleasdale, and it had the wonderful Drew Schofield in it and he lived across the road from my nana’s house so he showed me that I could be on the telly.

“He was my inspiration. So for any other young kid, no matter where you’re from, anything is possible.

“We are all people that have done that, we get to do what we love, which is different.

“We’re not digging holes, we’re not digging ditches, we’re not saving lives, but we have the opportunity to tell the human condition, and we have the obligation to tell beautiful stories and we need to keep that going.”

Owen Cooper with Stephen Graham and Hannah Walters (Jeff Moore/PA)
Christine Tremarco (Ian West/PA)

Cooper, 16, who has also proved unbeatable through awards season, won the first prize of the night and said: “A year ago, I was presenting an award and now I’m collecting one. This is a bit mad.”

He said: “In the words of John Lennon, you won’t get anything unless you have the vision to imagine it.

“So in my eyes, I think you only need three things to succeed: one, you need an obsession; two, you need a dream; and three, you need The Beatles.”

Graham echoed this sentiment in his speech, when he said: “The kid’s already said it, but in the words of The Beatles, all we need is love, namaste.”

Tremarco won the best supporting actress category for playing Cooper’s mother.

She said: “I feel so privileged to be standing up here holding this Bafta. I feel so honoured to be part of Adolescence.

“I hold this Bafta high.”

Alan Carr, left, and Paloma Faith (Ian West/PA)

The show also won two prizes at the Bafta Craft Awards last weekend for directing and sound.

Celebrity Traitors won the best reality award, as well as the memorable moment prize, for Alan Carr’s treacherous victory.

Collecting the award, Carr said: “Was I good? Was I really? Or were the other celebrities just thick?

“It was Nick (Mohammed) who made me cry – we were round that round table and he went, ‘We’ve got this’, and I was like, ‘No, I’ve got this’.

“When I laughed in their faces and went ‘I’m a faithful’, I was packing my bags. But I had the best time ever.”

Referring to the cast filming the second series in Scotland, he said: “I’m so jealous of all the celebs up there doing it, I wish I could do it all again.

“Sometimes when I’m a bit sad, I remember the laughter. I can even smell Celia’s fart.

Scarlett Moffatt (Getty Images)
Olivia and Alex Bowen (Getty Images)

“I dedicate this to Paloma (Faith), there is no-one else I would rather murder than you.”

While it was not nominated, the audible fart Celia Imrie emitted during the show was a recurring gag throughout the ceremony, referenced by Carr, host Greg Davies and even US star Seth Rogen.

Comedy show Last One Laughing won two awards – for entertainment programme and entertainment performance for Bob Mortimer.

Meanwhile, hit BBC comedy Amandaland scored the prize for best scripted comedy.

The leading actress Bafta was won by Narges Rashidi for her portrayal of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe in Prisoner 951.

Gabby Allen (Getty Images)

Dedicating the prize to the British-Iranian woman who was imprisoned in Tehran, and her family, Rashidi said: “Your resilience, your dignity, your love through impossible circumstances have moved us all.

“Your courage will stay with me for the rest of my life. This is for you.”

She said: “I was a seven-year-old who survived war. In Gaza, in Ukraine, in Sudan, they may never get that opportunity, that chance.”

Leading actress in a comedy was won by Katherine Parkinson for Here We Go, while leading actor in a comedy was won by Steve Coogan for How Are You? It’s Alan (Partridge).

During his speech, Coogan pledged to play Partridge for the rest of his life, saying: “Doing comedy in these troubled times is so important. It’s a privilege to make people laugh after all these years.”

He said: “I will keep on doing it. If anyone wants to know when Alan Partridge is going to die, it’s about the same time that I am going to die.”

JB Gill and his wife Chloe (Getty Images)

EastEnders was named best soap, while US comedy The Studio was named best international.

Code Of Silence, starring Rose Ayling-Ellis as a deaf canteen worker who helps police with a dangerous investigation using her advanced lip-reading skills, called on the television industry to improve representation, saying: “The industry needs to improve and hopefully it will.”

TV chef and former Bake Off judge Dame Mary Berry was honoured with the Bafta fellowship during the ceremony, saying: “I’m really bowled over by this accolade. I’m a cook, I’m a teacher, so I feel very honoured to be given Bafta’s highest award.”

Dame Mary reflected on her career with the BBC and said the corporation was “the broadcaster that we must cherish”.

Meanwhile, consumer champion Martin Lewis was given the special award.

Molly Smith and Tom Clare (Getty Images)

Collecting the prize, he said he wrote the speech on Thursday, 42 years after the death of his mother when he was 11.

He said: “For six years, barring school, I barely left the house. Now I’m picking up a Bafta.

“Life can be transformed, it can get better.

“If you had told that broken, scared boy that I’d proudly be a campaigning journalist, his jaw would have dropped.

“So I dedicate this to consumer journalism, where I found my voice.”

Gaza: Doctors Under Attack, the documentary commissioned and then shelved by the BBC over impartiality concerns and later aired by Channel 4, won the current affairs Bafta.

During his speech on stage, executive producer Ben de Pear referred to the fact the BBC airs the ceremony on delay, saying: “Finally, just a question for the BBC: given you dropped our film, will you drop us from the Bafta screening later tonight?”

Meanwhile, Grenfell: Uncovered was awarded the Bafta for single documentary, and director Olaide Sadiq used her acceptance speech to say the victims of the fire “deserve justice”.

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