Farewell award for TV star

Viewers paid a poignant farewell to well-loved star John Thaw with a posthumous prize at the Bafta TV awards tonight.

Sun, 21 Apr, 2002 - 22:00

Viewers paid a poignant farewell to well-loved star John Thaw with a posthumous prize at the Bafta TV awards tonight.

ITV’s Buried Treasure, one of the final roles played by the actor, who died of cancer exactly two months ago, took the Lew Grade Audience Award at the ceremony.

Among other big winners was ITV talent hunt Pop Idol which won the hotly contested Best Entertainment Prize.

BBC 2’s The Office was a double winner, taking the best sit-com title and Best Comedy Performance for its star and creator Ricky Gervais.

The series chronicled the petty goings on in an office fly-on-the-wall-style, capturing the back-biting and ludicrous management-speak.

Channel 4’s Graham Norton won the Best Entertainment Performance prize for the third year running, beating Pop Idol hosts Ant and Dec to the prize at London’s Theatre Royal Drury Lane.

Thaw’s widow Sheila Hancock was collecting the prize for Buried Treasure, voted for by readers of Radio Times - at the star-studded event. She missed out on the Best Actress title to Julie Walters for My Beautiful Son.

Thaw, to whom she was married for 28 years, was described as a national treasure when he died in February.

He was fondly remembered for starring roles as cops in Inspector Morse and The Sweeney, but in Buried Treasure he touchingly played a businessman who learned to love his previously unknown grand-daughter.

Controversial Channel 4 spoof Brass Eye, which upset viewers and prompted a wave of protest after tackling media representations of paedophilia, failed to win a prize despite two nominations.

It lost out in the Best Comedy to ITV’s The Sketch Show and in the Innovation category to BBC 2’s Double Take.

EastEnders, which gripped the nation with the trial of Little Mo last week, took the Best Soap prize for the third time in four years.

Racing commentary legend Murray Walker, the voice or Formula One for decades, was honoured with a special award for his contribution to TV at the ceremony, officially called the British Academy Television Awards, sponsored by Radio Times.

BBC 2’s Louis Theroux won the Richard Dimbleby Award for Best Presenter for the second successive year, for his When Louis Met programmes in which he spends time with celebrities.

Michael Gambon landed the Best Actor title for the third successive year for his performance in BBC 2’s Perfect Strangers.

And screenwriter Andrew Davies - the unsung hero who has brought to life many of TV’s top period dramas such as Vanity Fair, Pride and Prejudice - was given an Academy Fellowship. He also saw his BBC 1 Series The Way We Live Now, snapping up the Drama Serial Prize.

Sky News landed its first ever Bafta for its reporting of September 11, as the world was rocked by the terrorist outrages in New York and Washington.

The full list of winners is as follows:

:: Comedy Performance - Ricky Gervais (The Office, BBC 2).

:: Situation Comedy - The Office (BBC 2).

:: Entertainment programme or series - Pop Idol (ITV One)

:: Entertainment performance - Graham Norton (So Graham Norton, Channel 4).

:: Best Actor - Michael Gambon (Perfect Strangers, BBC 2).

:: Best Actress - Julie Walters (My Beautiful Son, ITV 1).

:: Drama Series - Cold Feet (ITV 1).

:: Drama Serial - The Way We Live Now (BBC 1).

:: Single Drama - When I was 12 (BBC 2).

:: Richard Dimbleby Award for Best Presenter - Louis Theroux (When Louis Met, BBC 2)