An unhinged queen takes a royal share of the honours

Releasing a film called The Favourite in the middle of awards season takes some nerve, but Bafta voters weren’t in the mood last night to shoot down hubris.

The offbeat costume drama, which stars Olivia Colman as an unhinged Queen Anne and Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone as two of her vying courtiers, had an enormously successful evening at the 72nd British Academy Film Awards.

Its run of honours included Outstanding British Film, Best Supporting Actress for Weisz and Best Original Screenplay.

In a shock result for a ceremony often keen to reward home-grown talent, Richard E Grant missed out on Best Supporting Actor for Can You Ever Forgive Me?

That award went to Mahershala Ali for his performance in Green Book as the black jazz pianist Don Shirley on a risky tour of the Deep South in 1962.

Last night’s ceremony signalled the start of the final leg of an unusually turbulent awards season, buffeted by weightier scandals than the usual inter-studio mud-slinging.

Foremost among them were the allegations of sexual assault made against Bryan Singer, the director of Bohemian Rhapsody, whose name was removed by Bafta from the Freddie Mercury biopic’s Outstanding British Film nomination.

Like A Star Is Born, Roma and the Neil Armstrong biopic First Man, Bohemian Rhapsody was nominated in seven categories, but failed to gain much traction.

A Star Is Born, too, struggled to convert many of its nominations into wins, though it did pick up Best Original Music over heavyweight rivals including Mary Poppins Returns.

The 25-year-old Guyana-born British actress, Letitia Wright, won the Rising Star award.

As Shuri in Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War, Wright had the distinction of being the only nominee at this year’s ceremony to have starred in two billion dollar-grossing films in the past 12 months.