Photo: BBC
Television personality and rapper Big Zuu is one of the massive winners at the BAFTA TV Awards, garnering top honors alongside all-out dramas Time and Help.
The 26-year-old British artist bested prominent personalities such as Graham Norton and Michael McIntyre in the awards for best entertainment performance, and his Big Eats series snagged the features award.
Meanwhile, Jodie Comer and Cathy Tyson snagged acting awards for COVID pandemic drama Help. Sean Bean also won the best actor for his character in Time – also named the best mini-series.
Among the winners at the British television industry’s highly anticipated awards show are Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, The Lateish Show with Mo Gilligan, Motherland, In My Skin, and The Chase.
The highly coveted BAFTA fellowship was awarded to Sir Billy Connolly.
Big Zuu’s Big Eats follows a chef and his school friends and accomplice, Tubsey and Hyder cook food for several celebrities on the Dave channel.
“Representation is so important,” said Big Zuu before the crowd in his acceptance speech, revealing how the three’s families had been immigrants to the UK.
“Growing up, there weren’t many chefs or people that looked like me on telly. And now, there’s young people watching us doing our ting, going, ‘You know what, if these wastemen can win a BAFTA, surely we can.’”
The rapper was surprised to snag the best entertainment performer award. But, he said, “I kind of let it all out in the first speech.”
His cheerful presence was different from the tone of a few of the other honor-grabber.
Winning the best single drama category, Together is a story about a couple portrayed by James McAvoy and Sharon Horgan as they struggled to thrive in life during the COVID pandemic.
In his acceptance remarks, its writer Dennis Kelly read a letter from the campaign organization COVID-19 Bereaved Families for Justice outcrying for the government’s management of the crisis to begin without delay.
Help star Comer snagged the best actress award for portraying a young care home worker. She expressed her gratitude to the caretakers who had assisted with the research, stating: “The biggest reward is that they felt represented with the telling of this story.”
On the other hand, Tyson was awarded the best supporting actress for her role as a care home resident with dementia in the same show. She was one of those who honored the broadcaster as the government got ready to privatize it.
“I remember being a teenager when Channel 4 was born, and it has had many good things to do with it, like diversity, and it was a voice for the people who were unheard at the time, and it’s still continued to do that,” she stated.
Many had taken advantage of the BAFTA stage to express their worries about the privatization, counting Gogglebox showrunner Stephen Lambert, whose show snagged the best reality and constructed factual award.
“Gogglebox might have ended when it started nine years ago because it got quite a modest audience, but a publicly-owned, risk-taking Channel 4 believed in it, and they’ve stuck with it,” he stated.
The government had started a shift in ownership is “necessary to give Channel 4 the best possible tools to innovate and grow at pace without asking the taxpayer to effectively underwrite the business.”
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