Last Sunday the red carpet rolled out for the 2009 BAFTA TV awards, the annual celebration of big success on the small screen. Having abandoned its usual venue at the London Palladium, this year’s prestigious event took place in the more spacious surroundings of Royal Festival Hall on London’s Southbank. The attending stars and glorious sunshine brought with them the usual throngs of excited fans and media. The atmosphere was jubilant but not quite as frenzied as the hysteria which tends to accompany the BAFTA film awards and its A-list parade. Ant and Dec don’t have quite the same effect on a crowd as Brad and Angelina. The likes of Michelle Ryan, Mischa Barton and Dame Helen Mirren did at least give Sunday’s Red carpet a light splash of Hollywood glamour.
Wearing a shiny silver mistake Graham Norton was this year’s competent but unexceptional host. There were surely many better candidates for hosting duties, but it’s unlikely that they would have wanted the job. At least Norton’s inoffensive and tamely scripted quips kept proceedings going at a brisk pace. Perhaps the organizers were fearful of how easily a genuinely fierce wit could have sunk their teeth into the stars and the ceremony itself. The entire evening is essentially an exercise in vigorous backslapping, as the British TV industry congratulates itself on being British and for making it onto to TV despite the flood of consistently brilliant and popular American programmes.
This year French and Saunders were honoured with the outstanding achievement award, Harry Hill was crowned most entertaining performance and the ‘X factor’ won yet again. No, you’re right... it’s really not good enough is it. The problem is that beyond documentaries and occasional one off dramas it’s hard to find legitimate domestic brilliance on British TV. David Attenborough deserves his rapturous applause for ‘Life in Cold Blood’, but he is in a minority of greatness. It would be worrying if a bald man with ‘wacky’ glasses and a novelty shirt really was the most entertaining thing on British television.
Rounding up the rest of this year’s winners... the Skins cast won the public vote award and went home delighted to be 15 and popular. The Bill won best soap for the first time in 25 years, thus proving the law of averages. Kenneth Branagh failed to make it through his acceptance speech for ‘Wallander’ without referencing Shakespeare. Stephen Dillane (‘The shooting of Thomas Hundall’) and Anna Maxwell Martin (Poppy Shakespeare) collected gilded trophies for best actor and actress respectively. The Comedy awards went to David Mitchell (apparently still funny after those awful PC/MAC ads) and Harry Enfield/Paul Whitehouse (apparently still funny after a 100years).
When the curtain fell, the winners and guests scurried off to the after-party to try and get their picture taken near to David Tennant whilst drinking free booze. Hopefully this year’s marvels and mediocrity will inspire even greater things for British TV in 2010.
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