The one rule of awards events is that you can never please everyone. For every gong that has people nodding in ecstatic approval, there will be one that has everyone spluttering about how so and so was robbed or another show should have won.
This year’s Baftas seem more likely than most to provoke debate.
Where last year’s event was accused of taking an interesting shortlist and then rewarding the safest show on it, this year saw some genuine shocks. Chief among those was the victory for Peaky Blinders. Steven Knight’s gaudy gangster drama saw off The Crown, Line of Duty and End of the F***ing World to claim best drama in a moment that appeared to surprise everyone at the event including Knight himself. Was it deserved? On balance, I’d argue yes.
End of the F***ing World was arguably the most inventive show on the list (and in a more risk-taking world would have won). The meticulously written Line of Duty always thrills and the elegant, expensive The Crown remains sleekly seductive. But Peaky Blinders has always had ambition and swagger to spare and never more so than in this fourth series, which saw Adrien Brody chewing the scenery into tiny pieces as an American gangster set on bringing retribution to 1920s Birmingham. It’s not a show that will ever win prizes for subtlety, but it was arguably the most purely entertaining drama on the shortlist, and sometimes that’s what you need.
That said Peaky Blinders’ victory will have come as a blow to Netflix, which had high hopes of landing its first Bafta with its drama of royal intrigue. While that did come when Vanessa Kirby won best supporting actress for her performance as the unlucky-in-love Princess Margaret, there remains the sense that Bafta, like the Emmys in America, may be keener to reward actors in Netflix shows than the series themselves.
There was the sense, too, that, regardless of shocks on the night, the shortlists had already weighted things in favour of the BBC in particular. Two categories: single documentary (won by Rio Ferdinand: Being Mum and Dad) and specialist factual (in which Basquiat: Rage to Riches surprisingly beat the juggernaut that is Blue Planet II) had shortlists composed entirely of BBC programmes, with Channel 4’s touching and informative Epidemic a particularly notable omission.
It was a bad year for diversity, too, with few BAME actors nominated and no awards won, a step backward from last year where Adeel Akhtar and Wunmi Mosaku were both victors. This was partially a shortlist issue – both the excellent Asim Chaudhry and the moving Anupam Kher were competing in particularly strong categories in which it’s hard to make a case against the eventual winner – but also, more importantly one of commissioning and casting with too many shows only casting BAME actors in major roles in true life stories.
The most welcome victory of the night saw Sean Bean winning for Broken (a series that really should have had a best drama nomination). Bean’s performance as a priest grappling with both his faith and his role in a changing community was quietly devastating, a piece of acting that needed no pyrotechnics to make you feel the force of his pain.
A similar piece of understated power saw Molly Windsor take home the leading actress award for Three Girls. This could be called a shock but in fact Bafta has form in rewarding relatively unknown actors in this slot – Georgina Campbell beat of a host of bigger names for Murdered by My Boyfriend in 2015 – and Windsor’s confident handling of difficult material was worthy of recognition. That said Claire Foy was desperately unlucky to be twice looked over for her subtle take on Queen Elizabeth in The Crown.
Elsewhere Brian F O’Byrne, heartbreaking in Little Boy Blue, beat Adrian Dunbar (consistently the best thing in Line of Duty) to win best supporting actor and Toby Jones was rightly rewarded for his lovely turn as the bemused Lance in Detectorists. The night’s other big comedy awards went (deservedly) to the acutely observed This Country, which won both best scripted comedy and best female performance in a comedy for Daisy May Cooper. Overall it was a strong night for BBC Three, which also saw Murdered for Being Different pull off a surprise victory over the inventive King Charles III.
Meanwhile the night’s least surprising result saw the much-garlanded The Handmaid’s Tale win best international series (yes, I am still sulking about Twin Peaks: The Return failing to win a nomination) while the bleak Three Girls beat the even bleaker The State to win best mini-series.
If the BBC was dominant in the drama and comedy categories, Bafta did their best to spread the love in the factual awards. Love Island correctly steamrollered the competition to win best reality, Sky took news coverage thanks to their reporting on events in Myanmar, Britain’s Got Talent won a somewhat over-familiar entertainment category and ITV won the sport category for their hyperactive but enjoyable coverage of The Grand National.
A decent enough year then and one with some pleasing surprises, although if there is one hope for next year it’s that the Bafta judges cast their net more widely both in terms of programmes and actors nominated. There is some stellar drama and comedy on the BBC, but equally there is outstanding and inventive work being made elsewhere.
