Guilt leads the way in Baftas race
Black comedy thriller Guilt, the first drama series made for BBC Scotland’s new channel, is leading the race for honours at this year’s Bafta Scotland Awards.
Outlander, The Nest, River City and two documentaries are also in the running for the new audience award, voted for by the public, at December’s virtual event.
The acclaimed black comedy thriller Guilt, the first drama series made for BBC Scotland’s new channel, is leading the race for honours at this year’s Bafta Scotland Awards.
The hit show, written by Neil Forsyth, the creator of the comic character Bob Servant, will be in contention for six awards at December’s ceremony, which will be staged in a virtual format due to the coronavirus pandemic.
It will be among the contenders in a brand new audience award, the only public vote in the awards, along with other TV dramas Outlander, The Nest, River City and two documentaries – Black and Scottish, and a Murder Case special.
Audiences will be able to cast their vote for the favourite TV show from today until November 18 for the new award at the ceremony which will be hosted by broadcaster Edith Bowman and comic and actor Sanjeev Kohli on December 8.
Guilt, which was shown on both BB C S cotland and BB C 2 last autumn, was seen by more than three million people across the UK. A second four-par t series has already been commissioned.
Guilt’s stars, Mark Bonnar and James Sives, who play two brothers whose lives star t to fall apart after they accidentally run over an elderly man in the street, are both up for best actor, along with Ncuti Gatwa, one of the stars of the hit Netflix comedy Sex Education.
Rising screen star Mirren Mack, who is also in Sex Education, is up for best actress for her first major TV role in surrogacy thriller The Nest, up against veteran actress Glenda Jackson for her performance in dementia detective stor y Elizabeth is Missing and Lois Chimimba, for the pilot of new addiction sitcom Group.
Elizabeth is Missing writer Andrea Gibb and Neil Forsyth will both be up for best writer, along with Paul Laverty, for the Ken Loach movie Sorry We Missed You.
Comic Jack Do cher t y is in the running for two different shows in the enter tainment categor y: a Scot Squad spe - cia lin which his character Chief Commissioner Cameron Miekelson grilled the nation’s political leaders and documentary Selling Scotland.
Frankie Boyle’s Tour of Scotland series is nominated for best factual programme, against rapper and writer Darren Mcgarvey’s own series and the two-part Murder Trial special, which shed fresh light on the Margaret Fleming case.
Categories for best feature film and best film actor and actress were shelved this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, which closed cinemas for months and led to many new releases being put on hold, and rule changes which insist that eligible films must now get a cinema release.
Bafta Scotland director Jude Maclaverty said: “Pre-covid 19, we had decided that you couldn’t enter a film on the basis of a film festival screening alone – they had to have a meaningful release of seven days or more to give audiences a chance to see films.
“We knew that it would take maybe a year to catch up however Covid-19 then hit and lots of stuff was then pushed back. We just didn’t have enough entries to go ahead the film categories. It didn’t feel a hard decision. However nobody is going to miss out next year.”