BAFTAs held on Sunday, 13 May at Royal Festival Hall in London saw a refreshing mix of award winners from obvious favourites to surprise selections. The show was hosted by British comedian Sue Perkins.
Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy and Helen McCory-starrer crime drama set in 1919 Birmingham, Peaky Blinders won the Best Drama Series Award. The BBC TV show beat Netflix’s The Crown, Channel 4’s End of the F***ing World and BBC One’s Line of Duty. Despite bagging the most prestigious award of the night, Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight expressed dismay over the lack of nominations for its cast.
While The Crown missed out on the Best Drama Series for the second consecutive year, lead actress Claire Foy also faced another disappointment when she was overlooked for the second time and the Leading Actress award went to Molly Windsor from BBC One’s Three Girls.
Three Girls is a three-part drama miniseries based on the true stories of sexual exploitation of girls in Rochdale, England. While accepting the award, 20-year-old Windsor gave a shoutout to the real victims “Three Girls was born out of the courage of the real three girls and the real Holly, Amber and Ruby that told this story over and over and over”. The series also won the award in Mini Series Category.
Sean Bean, who plays the role of maverick catholic priest Father Michael Kerrigan in BBC One’s Broken, won the award in the Leading Actor Category making it the actor’s first BAFTA win.
Andy Brereton and Avril Spary’s improvisational sitcom Murder in Successville won the best Comedy and Comedy Entertainment Program award. The BBC Three show is set in surreal Successville, a town with high celebrity homicide count where Detective Di Sleet (Tom Davis) hilariously tries to solve these high profile murders.
Irish actor Brian F O’Byrne who plays the father of murdered school boy Rhys Jone in ITV’s true crime drama Little Boy Blue won the award in the Supporting Actor category. The Tony Award-winning actor dedicated his BAFTA award to the little boy who abruptly lost his life at 11 years of age.
While The Crown got only 3 nominations compared to 5 from previous year, Vanessa Kirby’s award as the Best Supporting Actress saved the show from another dry run this year. Kirby, who plays Princess Margaret, said she was fortunate to get the chance to play “somebody that was so colorful and vivid and brave and strong”.
Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale, starring Elizabeth Moss, won the the BAFTA for the Best International Series. It was up against popular heavyweights like HBO’s Big Little Lies, FX’s Feud: Bette and Joan and PBS documentary series The Vietnam War.
BBC Three’s mockumentary show This Country bagged the award for the Best Scripted Comedy and its lead Daisy May Cooper won in the Female in a Comedy Programme category. In the male category, Toby Jones from BBC Four’s Detectorists claimed the award.
Graham Norton won the Best Entertainment Performance for his The Graham Norton Show (BBC One). Britain’s Got Talent, which is currently in its 12th season, won the BAFTA for Entertainment Programme and BBC’s Casualty triumphed in the Soap and Continuing Drama category.
Drama series
Peaky Blinders (BBC)
Leading actress
Molly Windsor – Three Girls (BBC One)
Leading Actor
Sean Bean – Broken (BBC)
Comedy and comedy entertainment programme
Murder In Successville (BBC Three)
Sport
The Grand National
International
The Handmaid’s Tale
News coverage
The Rohingya Crisis
Current affairs
Undercover: Britain’s Immigration Secrets – Panorama
Supporting actor
Brian F O’Byrne – Little Boy Blue
Mini-series
Three Girls
Reality and constructed factual
Love Island
Supporting actress
Vanessa Kirby- The Crown
Specialist factual
Basquiat: Rage to Riches
Factual series
Ambulance
Single drama
Murdered For Being Different
Scripted comedy
This Country
Entertainment performance
Graham Norton - The Graham Norton Show
Male performance in a comedy programme
Toby Jones – Detectorists
Female performance in a comedy programme
Daisy May Cooper- This Country
Single documentary
Being Mum and Dad
Entertainment programme
Britain’s Got Talent
Soap and continuing drama
Casualty
Short-form programme
Morgana Robinson’s Summer
Updated Date: May 15, 2018 12:08 PM