Rarely has a Bafta TV awards ceremony taken place against such a background of industry anxiety: plummeting terrestrial ratings, aggressive streamer competition, a precipitous drop in UK production. Even sponsors P&O Cruises will rarely have seen such troublesome seas.
Bafta voters (I am one, but don’t know any final results) will also have brought other external concerns. Jurors may worry thatMr Bates vs the Post Office(premiered January 2024) now feels too old, which could count against Monica Dolan and Toby Jones in the acting categories. (Because of calendar year qualification,Adolescencemay have the same problem in 2026.) Also, older voters can be reluctant to see pushy rich streamers thriving: they’ve just about come to terms with Netflix but Disney+ and Apple TV+, who have a strong shortlist presence, may, for some, be the future too far. Here are my preferences and predictions.
Anna Maxwell Martin won in 2006 and 09 (Bleak House/Poppy Shakespeare) and would merit a triple crown for her visceral performance as a survivor of terrible domestic violence in Until I Kill You. Billie Piper has four previous nominations without an award but risksScoop, in which she played Newsnight producer Sam McAlister, being seen by message-sensitive voters as a “Prince Andrew show”. But surprisingly receiving her first nod, Sharon D Clarke has long been one of the most electrifying screen and stage performers and deserves to win for the culture-clash dramaMr Loverman.
Clarke’s co-star, Lennie James, is a strong contender in the male category. But, despite exceptional talent and CV, David Tennant scandalously had to wait until last year for a first Bafta chance (in the comedy performance section with Good Omens). He’s still waiting for a statuette and I’d like him to get it for Rivals, in which he brought the depth of a Shakespearean baddie to a TV mogul. But US resident Gary Oldman happens to be in the UK (for his superb Krapp’s Last Tape at the York Theatre Royal) and so would be in easy reach of the stage to add a TV Bafta to his movie one (Churchill in Darkest Hour) for his meticulously dishevelled disgraced spymaster inSlow Horses.
A guarantee of class in any cast for 50 years, Jonathan Pryce has somehow escaped Bafta nomination and should dust off that space on his shelf for his showing as David Cartwright, an elderly spy who can’t remember what he’s meant to forget, in Slow Horses. Pryce would also, unusually, have been worth a slot for his cameo flashbacks as the dead Cardinal Wolsey in Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light but that show is represented by Damian Lewis, another strong contender for his portrayal of King Henry VIII: physically widening, mentally declining but still politically and maritally terrifying.
Baby Reindeer– after largely overcoming early legal and ethical concerns – was a stand-out show and has two nominees here: Jessica Gunning and Nava Mau. Unless they split the stalking drama’s vote, Gunning feels the category favourite. Although there will have been love in the room forKatherine Parkinson, in Rivals’ most empathetic role, and Monica Dolan’s gangster was the best thing inSherwood. (Plus, this panel won’t know if the best actress jury honoured her for Mr Bates. She may lose both.)
At Sunday’s ceremony, much discussion will reflect a sense of the BBC struggling against the streamers’ quantity of top-end fiction. More optimistically, the UK’s oldest broadcaster has 75% of this year’s candidates for best drama series. Sherwood’s second series showed a decline so it feels to be betweenWolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, or, if the panel is feeling more radical,Blue Lights, the break-out Northern Irish police hit. IfSupacellnicks it for Netflix, the BBC table will be funereal.
Baby Reindeer already won the best writer prize for Richard Gadd in the drama category of the Bafta Craft awards and, if Mr Bates vs the Post Office is penalised for distant transmission, it should win again. If the jurors needed their hearts warming,One DayorLost Boys & Fairiesmight come through. The latter – a fresh and inventive adoption drama – would be a surprising but justified winner.
The rise of overseas streamer drama makes Bafta’s single international category look ridiculously cramped. Even more confusingly, two of this year’s six –After the PartyandColin from Accounts– ran on heritage British networks: Channel 4 and BBC Two. That New Zealand/Australia pair are strong runners, with After the Party having found new space in the urgent but crowded territory of abuse accusation. However, as a remake of a 1980 mini-series made with very different cultural and casting assumptions, Disney+’s Japanese epicShōgunwould be the deserving choice for panellists keen to celebrate the New Television.
Though a hit, the David Mitchell doppelganger detective showLudwigmay feel more of a drama. ITV2’sG’Wedhas already done well to be fighting at this weight and soAlma’s Not Normal, for its last full series, feels the natural winner after a year in which the welfare system and austerity have been central political debates.
Channel 4’s specialism of edgy humour pays off with three impressive runners: Anjana Vasan (We Are Lady Parts), Kate O’Flynn (Everyone Else Burns) and Nicola Coughlan (Big Mood). Lolly Adefope may suffer for being in a show,The Franchise, that has already been cancelled. Sophie Willan has won before for Alma’s Not Normal and a double would be justified, but this is the last chance to honour Ruth Jones forGavin & Stacey. This will have been one of the toughest to judge.
Closed rooms may have an effect here if judges concluded that Danny Dyer (Mr Bigstuff) was more deserving inRivals, not knowing that he missed a shortlisting there. Young talent dominates with twentysomethings Dylan Thomas-Smith (G’wed), Nabhaan Rizwan (Kaos) and Bilal Hasna (Extraordinary). As a Northampton Town season ticket holder, though, I’m cheering on teenager Oliver Savell for his brilliant mimicry of Alan Carr, son of club legend Graham Carr, inChanging Ends.
Budget cuts have left many shows from the industry’s fun factories looking cheap and not particularly cheerful. So, for its sheer consistency of creativity and attention to detail, Michael McIntyre’s Big Show deserves a second Bafta.
In the TV world, there’s much affection and guilt over Andrew Flintoff, who, it becomes increasingly clear, was lucky tosurvive an accident while filming Top Gear. Disney+ got the documentary on that (a likely contender next year) but his remaining BBC franchise – in which he coaches young cricketers from disadvantaged backgrounds – is charming, informative and socially important, showing the talent that English systems (and not just cricket) miss: a series one discovery just made a county Second XI debut. The second innings –Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams on Tour– was even higher-scoring.
The least tense category in Bafta history,as the annual shortlist now involves choosing three from five and then rotating the winners around that trio. EastEnders has already had a special award in the Craft section so, in one way, it would be odd if the BBC long-runner didn’t also win this. Then again, that might expose the category’s limitations. It feels like a birthday battle between EastEnders, reaching 40, and Coronation Street, now 65, ahead of Casualty being honoured next year for four decades.
With soap advertising the weary longevity of some series, new breakout successes (increasingly rare) are at a premium in all sections. In a culture of reboots and remakes,The Traitors, though adapted from a Dutch template, is a genuine sensation and deserves recognition, having been overlooked for its first series. Claudia Winkleman did win entertainment performance last year and seems the biggest challenger again to Ant & Dec (three previous wins, six nominations) and Graham Norton (six wins, five nominations). Regardless of what happens here, Winkleman’s three hit shows – Strictly Come Dancing and The Piano as well as The Traitors – surely mark her as a special award or Bafta fellowship waiting to happen.
I was on the nominating panel for this but the final vote is public. Mr Bates, Bridgerton, Gavin & Stacey, Rivals, Strictly and The Traitors will all have support. Thenaked tennis scene in the Jilly Cooper adaptationreally made a social media racket but more viewers will have seen Smithy’s wedding so it feels like a golden goodbye to Gavin & Stacey.
The 2025 BaftaTelevisionAwards are on BBC One at 7pm on Sunday.