BAFTA TV Awards 2023 WINNERS: Bad Sisters, The Traitors and The Masked Singer triumph

The Traitors and The Masked Singer were among the early winners at the 2023 British Academy Television Awards with P&O Cruises at London’s Royal Festival Hall on Sunday.

The star-studded ceremony saw the best and brightest of British TV descend on the capital, with hosts Rob Beckett and Romesh Ranganatha acting as hosts for the evening.

One of the big winners proved to be BBC’s runwaway hit The Traitors, which scooped the Reality And Constructed Factual award, while host Claudia Winkleman won Entertainment Performance. 

While Anne-Marie Duff was awarded Supporting Actress for Bad Sisters, the viewer-voted BAFTA for the The P&O Cruises Memorable Moment Award was given the moment Paddington Bear enjoyed tea with The Queen during her Platinum Jubilee concert.

The BBC received the most nominations out of all the broadcasters with 47 nods in total, while Channel 4 received 21 and ITV scored 15. 

Ben Whishaw, who won critical acclaim for his performance as NHS junior Adam Kay in This Is Going To Hurt, was awarded the Best Actor prize, beating out competition including Gary Oldman, Martin Freeman, Cillian Murphy and Chaske Spencer.

On stage, the actor, 42, said: ‘Oh goodness me, I really didn’t think that would happen and I love so much the actors in this category.’

Whishaw also said ‘everybody in the show is just mind-blowing’ and ‘most of all thank you, Adam Kay, for writing this wonderful role. I’m very humbled, and blessed.’

The medical drama is based on Kay’s book This Is Going To Hurt: Secret Diaries Of A Junior Doctor which chronicles his work training to be a doctor in the NHS.

At the start of the show, Siobhan McSweeney won her first BAFTA TV award for best female performance in a comedy programme, for playing Sister Michael, the eye-rolling principal of the show’s Our Lady Immaculate College in the Channel 4 programme Derry Girls.

In the humorous speech, which she said in double speed given the short time given, she said: ‘So I’ve been warned not to do a political statement, so as my mother laid dying in Cork, one of the very last things she said to me was would I not consider retraining as a teacher. If she could see me now, getting a Bafta for playing a teacher. Joke’s on you.’

She also thanked Derry Girls writer Lisa McGee ‘for not listening to me when I said I could play all the girls parts’ and she also thanked Channel 4, adding ‘you have my devotion’.

McSweeney added: ‘To the people in Derry, thank you taking me into your hearts and living room, despite the ignorance of your so-called leaders in Dublin, Stormont and Westminster. Into the words of my beloved Sister Michael, ‘its time they started to wise up’.

The reality and constructed factual award was given to psychological adventure show, The Traitors, and collecting the prize, presenter Claudia Winkleman, 51, said she and the team are ‘blown away by this, thank you so much’.

She also thanked the BBC and referenced the meeting where commissioning editors agreed to make the show saying: ‘We are going to Scotland, we’re going to use the word murder – are you okay with that?’

Things got even better for Claudia, as later that evening she received the Entertainment Performance award for hosting The Traitors.

The presenter, 51, said she did not want to get emotional as her mascara ‘will run’ before asking her husband: ‘Please, can we have a dog?’

She also ‘thanked’ her mother and father and said it was ‘for you’ before saying: ‘You can’t have it… no, but you can touch it.’

Lenny Rush took home the award for Best Male Comedy Performance for his lauded performance in Am I Being Unreasonable?

Anne-Marie Duff won the Supporting Actress Award for the comedy Bad Sisters, said she was ‘completely shocked’ and thanked the cast and production team.

She added that TV is a ‘political arena’ and said she had a message to people at home.

Duff said: ‘If someone… is in their life who is bullying them who is telling them that who they are is wrong, that what they are isn’t enough… I am telling you now you are everything.’

The BAFTAs also paid tribute to stars including talk show host Jerry Springer, Strictly Come Dancing’s Len Goodman and presenter and drag queen Paul O’Grady who have died over the last year.

Doctor Who actor Bernard Cribbins, comedian Barry Humphries, Hi-De-Hi! actress Ruth Madoc and Emmerdale star Dale Meeks were also named by the ceremony.

In a shocking upset, The Masked Singer beat Ant And Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway and Strictly Come Dancing to win Best Entertainment Programme.

Host of the ITV show Joel Dommett said in his speech: ‘I really didn’t expect this, Strictly normally wins everything. Thank you so much to ITV firstly for believing in this silly show, it is so silly and it’s so wonderful, it has brightened up so many families and homes.

‘It is such a joy to make. All of the crew love making it. Thank you to all of the celebrities who have been on the show.’

Judge Mo Gilligan said: ‘People tied to mock it when it first came out, and now it has won a Bafta. It is great escapism…people at home don’t want to watch something depressing. We are just the faces of it, aren’t we Joel?’

Presented by Doctor Who returnees David Tennant and Catherine Tate, Joe Lycett Vs Beckham: Got Your Back At Xmas won the Bafta TV Features award.

The Channel 4 special of his show featured a stunt in which he threated to destroy £10,000 of his own money unless David Beckham pulled out of his deal with World Cup hosts Qatar, where homosexuality is still illegal.

Lycett later revealed he had not destroyed the cash through a shredder.

A statement from Lycett was read out on stage which said: ‘I’m sorry to not be there, but according to my PR team I have shingles.’

The refence to the conditions appears to be about presenter Holly Willoughby who revealed she had shingles before taking time off from This Morning due to the illness.

Comedian Lycett then thanked his team before ‘dedicating’ the award to ‘people still being oppressed in Qatar’.

The Memorable Moment TV BAFTA was given to Paddington Bear having tea with the late Queen during the Platinum Jubilee: Party At The Palace celebrations on the BBC.

Actor Simon Farnaby, who played a footman in the video and went on stage to accept the gong, called the segment a ‘lovingly handcrafted moment’ that also served as ‘a farewell’ to the longest serving British monarch.

Farnaby added: ‘She had a very joyful Jubilee tea that day… The person who most deserve this award is no longer with us, we can only accept it on her behalf and say ‘Thank you, mam, for everything.’

The Daytime award has been given to The Repair Shop: A Royal Visit which saw the King, then Prince of Wales, take part.

Arriving on stage, Jay Blades said: ‘Wow, just give me two seconds, I have to take a picture, it’s quite special. We started as a daytime show on BBC Two, I’m so glad we’ve got an (award).’

Blades added that it was the ‘first time’ that a ‘six-foot black guy, from Hackney, (with a) gold tooth, (from a) single parent’ was presented with an award for daytime TV.

Comedy legend Meera Syla placed a Bindi on her Bafta Fellowship award after taking to the stage to accept the coveted honour.

The comedian and actress, 61, praised her ‘wonderful parents’ and said ‘as a chubby brown kid from Wolverhampton I got othered a lot’.

In her speech she said: ‘I know this represents change we all know we have work to do, we all stand on the shoulders of our ancestors and giants.

‘The untold stories are the ones that change us…please keep going, I see you, thank you so much Bafta for tonight seeing us.’

Hosts Rob Beckett and Romesh Ranganathan took digs at the BBC, the Gary Lineker controversy and the furore over Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield‘s visit to the late Queen’s lying in state as they opened the awards with a string of edgy jokes.

The pair kicked off the ceremony in London’s Royal Festival Hall on Sunday night, with shows including The Crown, This Is Going To Hurt and Bad Sisters battling it out. 

It comes after it was confirmed earlier on Sunday that Holly and Phil will both appear on This Morning tomorrow, despite reports their friendship has completely broken down amid a tense 48 hours of talks.

Beckett said: ‘As we all know this year, there have been one or two issues with the subject of the BBC and balance. It’s not easy for comedians to host an award show on the BBC. We need to be funny. We need to be professional and also offer balanced views. This booking is perfect for balance.

‘I see a room filled with some of the hardest working and most talented people in TV all driven by a passion and a love for their craft.’

Ranganathan added: ‘Whereas I see a roomful of shark-eyed narcissists.’ The pair then chimed in unison: ‘Balance.’

Gesturing to Imelda Staunton, who is in the running for the best actress prize for her role as the late Queen in The Crown, Beckett said: ‘She’s nominated for her performance in The Crown.

‘Apparently, Holly and Phil got to watch that a couple of days before everybody else. A little bit of edge for you, early doors.’

The This Morning hosts were criticised on social media after they saw the late Queen lying in state without taking part in the public queue.

They later insisted they would ‘never jump a queue’ and their visit was for the purposes of reporting on the event.

Later Rob joked: ‘A few months back we were left hoping that The Traitors would be making a swift return to BBC One. Well that’s what some of the papers called the Match Of The Day presenters anyway. Are we edgy? I think we might be edgy.’

Lineker was briefly suspended as host of Match Of The Day in March over his criticism of the Government’s asylum policy on Twitter but returned to air following a boycott by top on-air talent at the broadcaster.

Pundits and presenters dropping out of a host of football shows in solidarity with Lineker prompted two days of disruption to TV and radio schedules.