Honours even
Blue Lights, Mr Loverman, Baby Reindeer, Industry and Mr Bates vs The Post Office were all among the scripted winners at the BAFTA TV Awards 2025. DQ was backstage to hear from the winners on a night when the variety of British television was celebrated.
After a year of British television in 2024 that boasted a number of agenda-setting, headline-making titles – from Baby Reindeer and Mr Bates vs The Post Office to Gavin & Stacey: The Finale and more – the scripted prizes were suitably shared at the BAFTA TV Awards 2025.
The BBC’s Belfast-set crime drama Blue Lights was named Best Drama for its second season, while ITV factual series Mr Bates vs The Post Office won the Limited Drama category.
BBC drama Mr Loverman was the only show on the night to win in two categories, with Lennie James taking Leading Actor and co-star Ariyon Bakare winning Supporting Actor.
Marisa Abela won the Leading Actress award for her performance in BBC and HBO coproduction Industry, while Supporting Actress winner Jessica Gunning completed an enviable haul of awards for her role in Netflix’s Baby Reindeer.
Sophie Willan’s BBC comedy Alma’s Not Normal triumphed in the Scripted Comedy category for its second season, with Ruth Jones winning Female Performance in a Comedy for her role as the iconic Nessa in Gavin & Stacey: The Finale. Danny Dyer won Male Performance in a Comedy Programme for his role in Sky’s Mr Bigstuff.
The BBC landed two more awards, with EastEnders claiming Soap & Continuing Drama and Quiet Life taking the prize for Short Form. The team behind Disney+ series Shōgun took home the BAFTA in the International category.
Meanwhile, the Television Special Award was presented to ITV for commissioning Mr Bates vs The Post Office, recognising the power of public service television in telling home-grown stories that have a significant impact, leading to societal change.
The TV Awards followed on from the BAFTA TV Craft Awards, where Baby Reindeer, Rivals and Slow Horses each scooped two prizes each.
As the awards were handed out, DQ was backstage at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall in central London to hear from some of the winners in the scripted categories.
Drama Series: Blue Lights
The BBC’s Belfast-set crime drama won the prize for its second season against competition from Sherwood, Supacell and Wolf Hall: The Mirror & The Light.
Louise Gallagher, co-creator and coproducer: It’s just down to the incredible writing from Declan [Lawn] and Adam [Patterson], and our incredible cast who just really embodied all the characters and brought them to life. [They say] ‘Don’t do a cop show’ but we did and it’s worked out really well.
Stephen Wright, co-creator and producer: I’ll say this over and over again, it’s just great scripts and great character writing. And once we got into a run with the show, we have a beautiful cast and a fantastic crew who are fully invested in the show. That kind of collective ambition is what, for me, makes the show successful. Make it with love.
Declan Lawn, co-creator, co-writer and co-director: In season two, the season we won this for, we told the story of victims and survivors of the Troubles. We spent some time with those people, quite a lot of time, and so did the actors, and the most touching thing for me was when victims and survivors of the Troubles got in touch afterwards to say thank you for that. I was a journalist for 16 years; I covered these stories a lot. But there’s something about drama that allows you to get to the emotional heart of things. I hope that helps some people in that position.
Limited Series: Mr Bates vs The Post Office
The ITV factual drama told the story of what has been deemed the greatest miscarriage of justice in British history, when hundreds of innocent sub-postmasters and postmistresses were wrongly accused of theft, fraud and false accounting owing to a defective IT system. The show has made a real-world impact, igniting a public scandal and leading to new legislation in Parliament, yet the fight for compensation continues amid delays to payouts.
Gwyneth Hughes, writer: It’s a British story. I couldn’t believe it was happening in my country. When I first heard about it, I thought, ‘That can’t be true. That can’t be right. That kind of thing doesn’t happen here.’ Maybe I was being really naive, but it’s the sort of story you imagine happening in Russia, China, where there are bureaucracies that are out of control and little people don’t have any power at all. To find out that it was happening here was very distressing. The particular thing that was happening to people that really upset me and kept me awake at night was that people were told, ‘You’re on your own, this isn’t happening to anyone else, you’re the only one.’ They were repeatedly told that – that is so cruel. It was the arbitrary nature of the power imbalance and the arbitrary nature of cruelty that the Post Office knew they were not alone and they still told them they were. I don’t understand it. I still don’t understand it and I’m really proud to have been part of fighting against it, fighting to put it right in a small way.
Leading Actress: Marisa Abela, Industry
Abela scooped the prize for her role as Yasmin in the third season of BBC and HBO coproduction Industry, a series about a group of young graduates setting out in the cut-throat world of city finance.
Season three felt like a massive step up for the show and I feel like that’s just continuing and continuing, so I’m excited to see the response season four gets, which we’re filming right now. I love that the people who watch the show enjoy it. I don’t mind how many people that is – as long as the ones who do watch it love it, that’s great. Obviously, the more the merrier.
Yasmin in season three is in a real mode of change. That season was all about change for her. It was all about a shift in who she was and what she needed to do. Yasmin was always a girl that came from a lot of privilege and just had things handed to her, and in season three we saw what it looked like when Yasmin took things for herself, and that just continues into season four. We’re seeing this evolution of Yasmin as a woman who is desperate for control.
I won’t be the person to ruin it [season four] for people, but it’s epic. The stakes have gotten higher and higher each season, and that definitely doesn’t slow down with season four.
Leading Actor: Lennie James, Mr Loverman
Save Me and The Walking Dead star James took home his first acting BAFTA for his role in this BBC drama based on Bernardine Evaristo’s novel. He plays Barrington Jedidiah Walker – Barry to his mates – who has been married to Carmel (Sharon D Clarke) for 50 years. But while she suspects him of cheating on her with other women, she doesn’t know he has actually been leading a secret, passionate affair with his best friend and soulmate, Morris (Ariyon Bakare).
I had a stock phrase about playing Barrington, which is that he made it so that every time I went to work, I had to go to work. I couldn’t cruise, I couldn’t take it easy, particularly playing him as a 75-year-old man and sometimes on the same day playing him as a 42-year-old man. So physically, I had to be clued in. He’s also a deeply complicated, nuanced and flawed character. In the book, it is so immediate, his complications. It’s not as simple as he’s just in the closet. There’s much more going on. It’s him as a successful black businessman. It’s him in his mind as a successful father, a successful grandfather. And navigating all of those complications in his life and in his character took hard work and concentration. I was very happy that the environment that Hong [Khaou], our director, created and our crew followed made it possible for us to try anything, go anywhere and do the job we really wanted to do.
It’s a queer old black couple, and that’s important because it’s a story even less told than just it being a queer black couple or a couple of colour. I hope it sparks conversations in the wider community and in my community in particular. I hope it starts a conversation that leads to people being able to be their true selves, both within their families and within their communities.
Supporting Actress: Jessica Gunning, Baby Reindeer
Gunning adds a BAFTA award to her Golden Globe and Emmy prizes for playing Martha, a woman who forms an unhealthy attachment to barman and comedian Donny (series creator and writer Richard Gadd), leading her to stalk him online and in person.
When I first got the scripts through, I was blown away, especially when I read the final moment of the last episode. I got goosebumps and I just thought, ‘You know what, this could be really special.’ Then I wore them [Netflix and producer Clerkenwell Films] down because I went in to audition for it about five times, which is a bit ‘Martha’ of me really, in hindsight. But I just kept thinking, ‘I think I know how to do this,’ and if she was played like a villain or a baddie, it would have been a real shame because I actually saw it as a love story. That’s the other way you can play it, really. But I knew when I read the scripts it was one of the best things I’ve ever read and one of the best characters I’ve ever had the chance to play.
Supporting Actor: Ariyon Bakare, Mr Loverman
A visibly stunned Bakare took home the award for his portrayal of Morris, who has shared a secret, passionate affair with his best friend and soulmate Barrington (Lennie James) for years.
I was homeless when I was 14. You don’t think when you’re homeless that you’re going to end up becoming something like this in the end. I never thought I’d ever be able to stand in front of a beautiful array of fabulous actors and go, ‘Yeah, I’m a part of your team.’
We don’t really get to see these stories come out of the Caribbean community, especially queer stories, and it breaks boundaries. It’s about two older guys, it’s a gay story, and it’s our community telling the stories, so it makes me realise that all stories need to be told. No matter where they’re from, whatever culture, there’s an array of stories of Britain and we should just make that become part of our rainbow.
We’ve had reactions on both sides [of the Caribbean community], where people have been quite negative and then we’ve had a plethora of people really being exceptionally positive. Even a couple of days ago, I had a woman come up to me and just grab me and say, ‘Thank you for telling this story,’ because these stories are there. On the press tour, we had a young man who was a Muslim and he was saying that he found it difficult to tell his parents, and he was really glad that this story was able to open that communication with them. That’s all I wanted to happen, that we can open communication and that people can be free to be who they want to be.
Female Performance in a Comedy: Ruth Jones, Gavin & Stacey: The Finale
Five years after she last played Nessa in the BBC comedy, co-creator and co-writer Jones reunited with James Corden to bring the hugely successful show to a close.
I’ve had a 17-year journey with this character, which is quite a rare thing, and to have worked with the people I’ve worked with on the show over this period of time, the cast, the crew, the production team, everybody has just been such a joy. It’s just been a really lovely rounding up of this astonishing nearly 20 years.
I love working with James Corden, I really do, and I hope we will carry on working together. We just both like sitting in a room together. We do a lot of napping. We do write as well when we get going.
After 2019, people asked a lot [about the future of the series] because it was left on a cliffhanger. But now, because it’s a finale, you don’t really want to see [Corden’s character] Smithy and Nessa being in that domestic setup, because the whole joy of them was that ‘will they/won’t they?’ Do you really want to see Nessa and Smithy talking about putting the bins out? You don’t really, so I think you’ll have to imagine it in your head.
Male Performance in a Comedy: Danny Dyer, Mr Bigstuff
Former EastEnders favourite and first-time BAFTA nominee Dyer was emotional as he collected this award for his role in Sky comedy series Mr Bigstuff. He plays Lee, who brings chaos to the lives of his estranged brother Glen and Glen’s fiancée Kirsty. Season two is due to air this summer.
I can’t believe I’ve nicked one of these, especially for comedy performance. It was so random, the whole thing. The world is so random at the moment anyway, so I suppose it’s justified in a way. I’m really proud of the show and [creator and co-star] Ryan Sampson, in particular, who wrote this with me in mind and said he would never have made it without me and gave me all the funny lines. It’s incredible. He wrote this show and he’s a straight man. For my first outing to do a scripted comedy series, and to nick one of these, is mental to me.
You’re only as good as the job in front of you, and it’s [about] getting the opportunities. As an actor, it’s difficult to even get a job. So to get to this stage where you’re nicking awards and stuff, it is a journey. I’ve been around a long time. EastEnders changed my career for so many different reasons, but unless you roll the dice and you decide to see what else is out there, you’ll never know. I happened to do that and it’s working out really well for me at the moment. I’m just really grateful to still be working.
I start shooting on Wednesday for Rivals S2, 12 episodes. It’s so lavish and lush and I’m very excited about it. We’ve already done Mr Bigstuff S2 as well, that’s already in the can. I think it comes out in July.
This series [of Rivals] is so much better than the first. It’s that ‘difficult second album’ thing, honestly, but the writers and the producers have absolutely nailed it. I can’t wait for people to see it. It’s a beautiful job for me.
International: Shōgun
The epic historical drama set in 1600s Japan took home the International prize ahead of the start of production for its second season.
Justin Marks, writer and exec producer: What we can say we’re really excited about [in S2] is there’s a 10-year time jump and, just given the history we are working off of, it gives us a lot of ground to grow the show in a lot exciting new directions. What’s most important is to honour the legacy of James Clavell’s book [on which S1 was based] when it comes to the characterisations and really the brilliant plotting and world building that went on and the great love stories. All of these things you can expect in the next season, especially the love story part. There’s still a good one out there.
Rachel Kondo, writer and exec producer: The show is difficult to watch, and we asked a lot of them [our audience]. Strangely, by asking a lot the audience, they had to set 10 hours out of their lives. They had to set their phones down, too [with the show featuring a lot of subtitles]. Everything was trickier and, for some reason, they responded. We’re hoping that maybe they sensed the care that was put into it and therefore they were generous enough to lend us their care in watching it.
Soap: EastEnders
The BBC’s EastEnders was named Best Soap in its 40th year, taking the prize just a fortnight after receiving the Special Craft Award at the BAFTA TV Craft Awards in recognition of its long-term commitment to nurturing new talent.
Kate Oates, BBC Studios head of genre: Chris [Clenshaw] has been leading the show for the last few years, and through him and the team, we’ve broken boundaries with the genre and told stories in different ways, but it’s always been really characterised and really true to the DNA of the show.
Chris Clenshaw, outgoing executive producer: That’s the beautiful thing about our genre. You can have everything – you can have a camp, higher-concept thriller, and you can be telling a sexual assault storyline at the same time. Fortunately, there’s something for everyone. That’s what’s soap’s done so well for so many years, and that’s what it’s got to continue to do.
Short Form: Quiet Life
This largely silent BBC comedy short sees Geoffrey, played by co-creator Luke Rollason, reassess his life and values after a social media meltdown.
Luke Rollason: It’s extremely validating [to win an award] when you’re trying to make work that sometimes might feel a little bit out of the mainstream and it feels like so often when you speak to commissioners, especially in comedy, time and time again, you’re told that they’re only really looking for the kind of things that are already achieving success. The Short Form category is so important. I’m so glad that channels are still making shortform, because it’s a place that people can experiment. It feels really amazing for something that’s a little unusual to be recognised like that.
Ruth Pickett, director: Sometimes there can be a feeling in comedy that maybe it’s not necessarily always taken as seriously as other genres, so it’s absolutely phenomenal to win this. Obviously, with comedy, you set out to bring joy to the audience. Also, as a female director, there are not very many of us, especially in comedy. I’m just so unbelievably grateful.
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tagged in: Ariyon Bakare, Baby Reindeer, Bafta, BAFTA TV Awards, Blue Lights., Danny Dyer, EastEnders, Gavin & Stacey, Industry, Jessica Gunning, Lennie James, Marisa Abela, Mr Bates vs the Post Office, Mr Bigstuff, Mr Loverman, Quiet Life, Ruth Jones, Shōgun, Sophie Willian