Bafta TV awards 2021: who should win and who WILL win

It has not been the easiest of years for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. In April, they honoured Noel Clarke with the award for outstanding British contribution to cinema, only for, days later, a newspaper to publish a series of sexual harassment allegations against the actor, writer and director. Bafta have since withdrawn Clarke’s award, and consequently Sunday’s TV awards will not, for the first time, feature any outstanding contribution awards.

Outstanding British TV in 2020, however, helped us all to endure the gloomiest of years, and Bafta have one very big – and very nice to have – headache on Sunday night: how can they suitably honour I May Destroy You, Normal People, Small Axe and I Hate Suzie? All four dramas could sweep the board in any other given year, but now must share the glory. As has increasingly been the case of late, British drama lords it over British comedy, with the pleasant and heartfelt (Friday Night Dinner, Man Like Mobeen, Ghosts) taking the place of the truly hilarious.

There are other quibbles too: why has Michael Sheen’s entertaining caricature as Chris Tarrant been nominated for ITV drama Quiz, and not Matthew Macfadyen’s magnetic performance as the “Coughing Major”? And why, for instance, is I Hate Suzie a drama series (eight episodes, 276 minutes) while I May Destroy You (12 episodes, 345 minutes) is a mini series?

This year’s event, presented from London’s Television Centre by Richard Ayoade, will be a “hybrid” ceremony, with the nominees for the major acting and comedy awards attending in person, and everyone else beaming in via Zoom. And if the stars can’t make it but still fancy donning their glad rags, they can be transformed into a snazzy hologram for the red carpet. Do not adjust your set.

Best drama series

Should win - I Hate Suzie

Lucy Prebble and Billie Piper’s gleefully horrid black comedy, about a former child star’s descent into midlife infamy, stuck a middle finger up at the media’s treatment of famous young women. Barbed wire as TV.

Will win - The Crown

Bafta has never quite bowed and curtsied in the presence of the Royals (it’s only ever won one of the “big” Baftas), but the double barrels of Diana, Princess of Wales and Margaret Thatcher should ensure the fourth season finally walks off with arguably the most coveted award.

Also nominated: Gangs of London, Save Me Too

Best mini series

Should win - I May Destroy You

For the purposes of 2021, this is the big one. I May Destroy You vs Normal People vs Small Axe. You couldn’t turn your nose up at any of them (apologies to Adult Material), but Michaela Coel’s dazzling drama, a subversive psychological drama about one woman’s hunt for her rapist, is the one we’ll be talking about in 20 years.

Will win - I May Destroy You

Small Axe won more at the Bafta Craft Awards last month, but I May Destroy You bagged Best Director and Best Writing, suggesting that Bafta think this one is pretty special. They’re not wrong.

Also nominated: Adult Material, Normal People, Small Axe

Best single drama

Should win - The Windermere Children

This one will be overshadowed by the first two awards, but Simon Block’s profound drama about a group of young Holocaust survivors who were brought to England in 1945 deserves recognition.

Will win – Anthony

No less profound, of course, was Jimmy McGovern’s inventive drama, which imagined the life never lived by Anthony Walker, murdered by racist thugs in 2005. Expect the great Liverpudlian to add a fifth Bafta to his mantelpiece.

Also nominated: BBW (On the Edge), Sitting in Limbo

Best actor

Should win - Shaun Parkes (Small Axe)

His is not the flashiest name on the list, and his is not the flashiest performance in Steve McQueen’s Mangrove, the first of the five Small Axe films. But Parkes’ turn as reluctant revolutionary Frank Crichlow was one of rare, mostly restrained power.

Will win - John Boyega (Small Axe)/Paul Mescal (Normal People)

Expect the more stellar names to triumph. The only question is whether Bafta will plump for the sheer magnetism of Boyega, who bristled as real-life Met Police office Leroy Logan, or the quiet introspection of Mescal, who broke hearts as the troubled young lover, Connell.

Also nominated: Josh O’Connor (The Crown), Paapa Essiedu (I May Destroy You), Waleed Zuaiter (Baghdad Central)

Best actress

Should win - Michaela Coel (I May Destroy You)

You could hand this award to any of the six and they would deserve it. But ask yourself, of those half dozen performances, which had you never seen on your television before? Coel’s Arabella was a blistering study in trauma made flesh.

Will win - Daisy Edgar-Jones (Normal People)

Normal People won’t walk away empty handed, and I fancy Daisy Edgar-Jones’s moth-wing fragile coming-of-age performance to win by a nose.

Also nominated: Billie Piper (I Hate Suzie), Hayley Squires (Adult Material), Jodie Comer (Killing Eve), Letitia Wright (Small Axe)

Best supporting actor

Should win - Tobias Menzies (The Crown)

In the year that Prince Philip died, it would be fitting if Menzies’s textured performance of a man the public rarely got to see beyond ceremonial duties. Not since Jared Harris and Alex Jennings has The Crown seen such depth.

Will win - Rupert Everett (Adult Material)

How could they resist? Sleazy, sexy, reptilian – and his performance as porn baron Carroll Quinn wasn’t bad either. Worth the outspoken Everett winning for the speech he might give alone.

Also nominated: Kunal Nayyar (Criminal: UK), Malachi Kirby (Small Axe), Michael Sheen (Quiz), Micheal Ward (Small Axe)

Best supporting actress

Should win - Rakie Ayola (Anthony)

The Welsh actress had an impossible job – to portray the grief of a mother whose son, in the drama’s narrative but not in real life, was alive and well. Witnessing Gee Walker’s happiness at her son’s wedding, which he did not live to have, was crushing.

Will win - Helena Bonham Carter (The Crown)

Well, there must be some reason why she’s there. Bonham Carter certainly sucks on a cigarette as savagely as she delivers those-putdowns as Princess Margaret – presumably Bafta are still smitten after Vanessa Kirby’s win for the same role.

Also nominated: Leila Farzad (I Hate Suzie), Siena Kelly (Adult Material), Sophie Okonedo (Criminal: UK), Weruche Opia (I May Destroy You)

Best male comedy performance

Should win - Paul Ritter (Friday Night Dinner)

Another one from the heart, following Ritter’s tragic death at the age of 54 last month, but his performance as the barmy patriarch of the Goodman family is sitcom gold and a worthy winner.

Will win - Paul Ritter

How could they not? A chance for Bafta not only to honour Ritter’s excellent comic turn, but also to nod to the many performances he will never deliver.

Also nominated: Charlie Cooper (This Country), Guz Khan (Man Like Mobeen), Joseph Gilgun (Brassic), Ncuti Gatwa (Sex Education), Reece Shearsmith (Inside No 9)

Best female comedy performance

Should win - Daisy Haggard (Breeders)

Very quietly, Haggard has emerged from Britcom bit-part player to one of the country’s finest comic actresses. It’s time she had some recognition.

Will win - Daisy May Cooper (This Country)

A very tight one to call. Bafta clearly has a soft spot for Sex Education and Gbemisola Ikumelo is a previous nominee. However, I feel a fond farewell for Daisy May Cooper’s truculent Kerry Mucklowe is in the offing.

Also nominated: Aimee Lou Wood (Sex Education), Emma Mackey (Sex Education), Gbemisola Ikumelo (Famalam), Mae Martin (Feel Good)

The British Academy Television Awards is on BBC One on Sunday at 7pm