• Marvellous and The Lost Honour of Christopher Jefferies win two awards each
  • First-time BAFTA winners in six out of seven performance categories
  • Ant and Dec win Entertainment Performance for second year
  • Jeff Pope receives Special Award
  • Jon Snow honoured with Academy Fellowship

London, 10 May 2015: The British Academy of Film and Television Arts has announced the winners of this evening’s House of Fraser British Academy Television Awards, celebrating and rewarding the very best programmes and performances in 2014. The ceremony was hosted by Graham Norton at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London, where presenters included Chris O’Dowd, Archie Panjabi, Mary Berry, Maisie Williams, David Harewood, Jason Isaacs, Anna Friel, Tess Daly and Steve Coogan.

There were two awards for The Lost Honour of Christopher Jefferies, with Jason Watkins receiving his career-first BAFTA in the hotly contested Leading Actor category. The Peter Morgan-scripted drama, which tells the true story of the title character’s false accusation of murder and the media vilification that followed, also received the award for Mini-Series.

In the Supporting Actress category Gemma Jones, who was last nominated in 1977, received her first ever BAFTA, for Marvellous, the feature-length biopic of Neil Baldwin. Marvellous was also successful against strong competition in the Single Drama category.

Georgina Campbell won the BAFTA for Leading Actress for her harrowing portrayal of a victim of domestic abuse in the BBC Three drama, Murdered by My Boyfriend. Stephen Rea completes the drama performance categories winning Supporting Actor for his role in the tense political thriller The Honourable Woman.

For the second year running there were two BAFTAs for Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway: a win in the ever-competitive Entertainment Programme category and in Entertainment Performance for Ant and Dec themselves, where the duo were nominated alongside Leigh Francis, Graham Norton and Claudia Winkleman.

In Female Performance in a Comedy Programme, Jessica Hynes received her first BAFTA for her role as PR-jargon queen Siobhan Sharpe in W1A, while Matt Berry toasted his success in Male Performance in a Comedy Programme for Toast of London.

Following his BAFTA win at the British Academy Television Craft Awards a fortnight ago, Mackenzie Crook received the BAFTA for Scripted Comedy alongside Adam Tandy for Detectorists. Also repeating success from the Television Craft Awards was Sally Wainwright who, alongside her co-nominees, received the Drama Series BAFTA for rural kidnap thriller, Happy Valley.

The BAFTA for Comedy and Comedy Entertainment Programme was awarded to The Graham Norton Show, with ceremony host Graham Norton handily on-stage to collect the award. The BAFTA for Soap and Continuing Drama, which recognises the exceptional talent required to deliver stories that hold an audience over days, weeks and months, was awarded to Coronation Street.

In the International category, the BAFTA was awarded to True Detective, which stars Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson as two Louisiana detectives in their 17-year pursuit of a brutal killer.

Channel 4 fared well in factual programming: Grayson Perry: Who Are You? won for Specialist Factual, The Island with Bear Grylls was successful in its first series for Reality & Constructed Factual, and long-running architecture series, Grand Designs, received its first-ever BAFTA, for Features. The BAFTA for Single Documentary was awarded to the compelling vigilante documentary, The Paedophile Hunter, while the award for Current Affairs went to Children on the Frontline (Dispatches).

BBC Three’s Life and Death Row, which gained unprecedented access to US death row inmates in an intimate both-sides study of violence and justice, received the BAFTA for Factual Series. The award for News Coverage went to Sky News Live at Five: Ebola, while BBC Two’s WW1 Remembered – From the Battlefield & Westminster Abbey received the BAFTA for Sport & Live Event.

Included in the ceremony was a short filmed tribute to author, critic and broadcaster Clive James, featuring clips from his long and illustrious career, as well as footage of the presentation of his Special Award earlier this year. The tribute was led by Charlie Brooker in recognition of James’ outstanding creative contribution to television.

The Special Award in honour of Alan Clarke was presented to Jeff Pope, one of the UK’s foremost producers and writers whose career has spanned television and film, receiving nine BAFTA nominations along the way for titles including Mrs Biggs, Mo, Appropriate Adult, Philomena and this year’s BAFTA-nominated biopic, Cilla. 

The Fellowship, the highest accolade the Academy bestows, was presented to journalist, news correspondent and presenter Jon Snow in recognition of an outstanding career spanning over 40 years in the industry. During that time, Jon Snow has reported to British audiences on many of the defining moments of the 20th and 21st centuries, including the release of Nelson Mandela, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States.

The Radio Times Audience Award, the only award voted for by the public, was won by Sherlock.

Red carpet highlights, backstage interviews with all the winners, clips of the nominated programmes and all the latest images from the night’s events are available at www.bafta.org/awards/television.

Yesterday’s ‘BAFTA TV Forum: Generation Next’, part of BAFTA’s year-round programme of events and initiatives that supports the television industry, featured a number of BAFTA winners and nominees discussing their craft and career progression with industry newcomers. The event was in partnership with Creative Skillset, and supported by The Galashan Trust and the Academy Circle.


See the full list of winners >

Visit the Television Awards Press Room >


Further Information

For further information please contact freuds:

Dan Maynard
[email protected]
0203 003 6649

Nick Baxter
[email protected]
0203 003 6658