Back-slappers’ Bafta borefest

DOES anyone care about the Baftas other than the people at the Baftas?

Sunday night had a clear message for viewers – this ain’t for you.

Instead, it was for brown-nosing bores who appear on the BBC and Channel 4 to tell us how “bloody brilliant” they both are.

Winner after winner praised C4 for “risk-taking”.

Yeah. It takes guts to nick a baking show and pretend that twaddle like Open House: The Great Sex Experiment is a lofty “social experiment”, rather than just soft porn titillation for the drunk, dateless and desperate.

All four scripted comedy contenders were BBC or C4 shows, boasted Holly Walsh, failing to add that hardly anyone watches them. (And they’re nowhere near as funny as Curb Your Enthusiasm, Schitt’s Creek or The Good Place.)

Viewers search the schedules for genuine laughs as desperately as menopausal women hunt for blackmarket HRT. But those in the Bafta bubble don’t care about shrinking audiences and peed-off viewers.

It’s the great unwashed vs the great unwatched.

My heart sank when the opening “treats” trailer included sub-standard submarine saga Vigil, aka Voyage To The Bottom Of The Ratings, and little-viewed poetry snooze-athon Life Of Rhymes.

It’s hard to take the Academy’s commitment to “excellence” seriously when toss like Married At First Sight gets nominated. Great shows like Clarkson’s Farm, The White Lotus and Dopesick are totally blanked. Actual highlights included Billy Connolly’s fellowship, Time scooping Best MiniSeries and deserved wins for Sean Bean and Jodie Comer. Stephen Graham and Big Zuu, pictured, flew the flag for working-class talent, so under-used now. Accepting his Entertainment gong, Zuu also asked Bafta “Are you mad?” cos, after all, he fronts another bloody cooking show, and a vegan one at that.

Television needs red meat drama just as much as it needs smart