British actors Kenneth Branagh and Albert Finney are to go head to head for a prestigious Emmy Award, two of several homegrown nominations for the annual US awards ceremony.
Five-time Oscar nominee Finney's performance as Sir Winston Churchill in acclaimed drama The Gathering Storm won him a nomination for the best actor in a made for TV movie. Vanessa Redgrave, who played the wartime leader's wife Clemmie, was also shortlisted for the best actress award.
The drama, screened last Friday on BBC2, was both a critical and ratings success, pulling in almost 4.5m viewers - around twice the channel's usual ratings at that time.
Branagh received a nomination for his portrayal of legendary explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton in the £10m Channel 4 dramatisation of his epic trek to the south pole.
Shackleton, screened last Christmas over two nights, was the most expensive ever produced by the channel, and was also nominated for best mini-series alongside second world war drama Band of Brothers, a BBC co-production.
Among the US nominees, HBO's black comedy drama, Six Feet Under, set in a funeral parlour and currently being screened on Channel 4, led the way with 23 nominations.
Last year's big Emmy winner, NBC's White House drama The West Wing, followed with 21 nominations, including one for best drama.
These two were joined on the best drama list by two series screened in this country by Channel 5 - CBS's CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and NBC's long-running legal series, Law & Order - plus BBC2's cult import espionage thriller 24, made by Fox.
Six Feet Under earned nominations for six of its regular cast members, including Peter Krause and Michael C Hall as brothers Nate and David Fisher, who will square off for best lead actor in a drama series.
Also nominated for best actor were Martin Sheen for The West Wing, Kiefer Sutherland for 24 and Michael Chiklis for the FX cable network's controversial cop show, The Shield.
The award winners will be announced in Hollywood on September 22.
