John in the lion's den A bag of monkey nuts to John Yorke, the affable BBC drama supremo who arrived at the Grosvenor House for the post-awards dinner hoping to toast Holby City's unlikely triumph in the continuing drama category. Finding himself without a seat at the BBC table thanks to an organisational cock-up, when he finally found somewhere to sit he managed to maintain a smile as he slowly introduced himself to a table full of hacks. Wisely, he was whisked away after pudding just as his new hosts were topping up his wine glass for the umpteenth time.
It gets better every time Monkey's enduring image of the night: a triumphant, and possibly slightly inebriated, Gavin & Stacey co-star and co-creator James Corden rewinding and reviewing his acceptance speech over and over again on a big screen at the post-dinner party.
Some Dames do it, some Dames don't Dame Eileen Atkins, who won the Bafta TV award for best actress, played down any rivalry with her Cranford co-star Dame Judi Dench, who joked there would be a "huge catfight" after they were both nominated at last night's ceremony. However, there is one outstanding bone of contention between the pair. It's to do with mobile phones. "Dame Judi gets cross with me because I don't text," said Atkins. "But I don't live in that world." The Bafta winner, who was last nominated in 1969, also revealed that she was not overly impressed with her role in Cranford when she was first offered it. "I didn't think it was too good a part - I thought she was the only one who wasn't funny." Who's laughing now?
Brucie's school days So what did Atkins have in common with another of the night's big winners, the newly-anointed Bafta fellow, Bruce Forsyth? That's right - they both went to the same school, the Latymer school in Edmonton, north London. And they were even there at the same time - just. "Did I carry your books?" asked Forsyth in one of the least likely exchanges of the night. "I think you were a prefect and I was in the first year," replied Atkins. Which sounds more likely, seeing as Forsyth is 80 and Atkins a sprightly 73. "No, I was never a prefect..." said Forsyth. Before they went on to discuss their favourite teachers, and why double maths was such a bore, Forsyth scotched rumours that he would be leaving Strictly Come Dancing by saying he would definitely be presenting the new series this year. "They were saying I would stop doing it after the first series, and then the second, then the third..." said Brucie. "All I am saying is I will definitely do Strictly Come Dancing this year." We'll take that as a maybe, then.
Hungry to win The upside of doing the Baftas in a theatre - the London Palladium this year - rather than a hotel is that you can get a lot more guests in and it looks a lot better on telly. The downside is that people have to wait much longer for their dinner - not due to be served until after last night's awards, start time 6.30pm - at about 10pm. This was evident when Andrew Marr came into the press room after winning the specialist factual prize for BBC2's Andrew Marr's History of Britain. So did he want to talk about the award? The programme? The fascinating person he just met on the steps outside? No. "You've got food already!" he exclaimed. The honey-covered chipolatas were delicious.
Square eyes "A double Bafta for a clips show? How did that happen?" The host of ITV1's Harry Hill's TV Burp was delighted with his double win, coming as it did 20 years after he qualified as a doctor. So how much TV does he have to watch for the show? "All of Sunday, all of Monday, we have a meeting on Tuesday, then all of Wednesday, then we record the programme Thursday, then all of Friday..." So quite a lot, then.
Tough call Kayvan Novak, picking up the gong for best comedy programme for his E4 series Fonejacker, dedicated the award to a researcher on the show called Chris Barber. "He cannot be with us to tonight, but if you are listening Chris, this is for you." So who is Chris and why does he deserve it? It turns out Barber has one of the toughest jobs on TV - ringing up the victims of the phone hoax show to ask permission if the clip can be used on air. "He's not dead or anything," said Novak. Monkey's glad to hear it. So just how angry do people get when they are, er... Fonejacked? "One guy threatened to kill me," revealed Novak. "It's amazing how crabby some people are just after Christmas."
Hideously diverse Seven years after then director general Greg Dyke described the BBC as "hideously white", Holby City star Hugh Quarshie had a message for BBC bosses after the show picked up the best soap... sorry, continuing drama Bafta. "I think Holby makes the BBC look very good," said a serious-looking Quarshie, who plays Ric Griffin in the show. "There is not another show that is as ethnically diverse as Holby... maybe The Bill, maybe Casualty." And maybe there could be some more.
Top drawer A post-script to Britz writer and director Peter Kosminsky's moving tribute to his late father after winning the drama serial Bafta for the Channel 4 show. Kosminsky remembered how he had watched his dad write script after script on his portable Olympia typewriter only to see them get rejected. "The drawer under the bed was full of rejected scripts," said Kosminsky. "It would have been nice if he could have seen me win a Bafta for something I had written." But does he still have the scripts? "My mum still has them," said Kosminsky. So had he thought about going through them to see if there was a script or idea that might be rescued and one day turned into something on screen? The thought appeared genuinely never to have occurred to the writer/director. "That's a great idea... I had never thought of that." It might happen yet...
Nul points The press bumph for last night's awards contained a handy year-by-year guide to which channel won what, when, and how many. ITV's hat-trick of awards last night was four down on last year, while Channel 4's haul of eight was six up on 2007. But it makes tough reading for channels like BBC4 - surely a contender next year - More4 and Channel Five. "2007: 0. 2008: 0. Year on year difference: same."
Heggessey's forward thinking Simon Ford, executive producer of BBC1's The Tower: A Tale of Two Cities, which won the factual series Bafta, said the BBC took a while to realise quite how good it was. Perhaps this had something to do with the fact that it was commissioned nearly five years ago by then BBC1 controller Lorraine Heggessey. "The BBC did not quite understand what it had on its hands," said Ford. With a Bafta to show for it, no doubt it will now.
Winning Street Poor John Simm, the star of Life on Mars, which was beaten by fellow BBC1 drama The Street for the second year in a row. Not only that, Simm then had to take to the stage to present an award himself. "They are just very different types of shows," said The Street's executive producer Sita Williams, who it turns out is friends with Life on Mars creators Matthew Graham and Ashley Pharoah. "I think the world needs Life on Mars and the world needs The Street. It would be great if they could both win." Except they can't. The good news for Simm: he had a big bushy beard behind which to - almost - hide his disappointment. The Street creator Jimmy McGovern didn't turn up, as is his habit, because he thought it might be bad luck. Perhaps Simm should have done the same.
