The British Academy of Film and Television Arts in Scotland (BAFTA Scotland) has announced the winners of this year’s British Academy Scotland Awards during a special digital ceremony hosted by Edith Bowman.
Comedy legend Stanley Baxter received the Outstanding Contribution to Film and Television Award. Comedy drama Guilt won two awards (Television Scripted and Director Fiction).
Scot Squad won the Entertaimment Award and the documentary Greg Davies: Looking for Kes, won the Special Factual category.
Joining Edith Bowman on the night to present the Awards was Sanjeev Kohli, alongside a number of guest presenters including Janey Godley; Julia Brown, Lorn Macdonald, Richard Rankin and Shereen Nanjiani. Brian Cox, Lorraine Kelly, Iain Stirling, Katie Leung, JJ Chalmers, Bill Paterson, Jack Lowden and Alex Ferns were among those helping to announce this year’s award winners remotely.
Speaking from his home in London, Stanley Baxter said: “I don’t think I could have been anything else but a performer. I was so rotten at everything else I tried to do. Normally at school, you know you find out there, what you have a talent for, and it turned out I had no talent at all, but really it gave me all my interest with showbusiness interest. And that was true all of my life. Thank you, BAFTA Scotland, for this honour I’m very, very pleased. Thanks a lot.
Tributes poured in for the iconic entertainer from fellow comedians such as Sir Billy Connolly, Alan Cumming, Elaine C Smith, Armando Iannucci, Ford Kiernan and Tom Allen.
Billy Connolly said: “Hello Stanley! Billy Connolly here. Hoping that you’re nervous. I’m hoping you’re a wreck sitting in your seat, feeling like hell. I know that you don’t like this kind of thing, but you deserve it. Nobody deserves it more. The work you put in in the 60’s and 70’s it stands on its own. You’re a marvel and you’ve got beautiful legs.”
Alan Cumming, said: ”I really do think that Stanley has - inadvertently probably - given me the sort of outlook I have on acting and writing and everything I do really, because so many of the things he was parodying, those sketches and big musical numbers and everything I saw as a little boy, I was seeing his parodies of them before I’d seen the original things. So, my whole way that I look at life, is that I’m looking for the parody even though it hasn’t been parodied yet, and I’m really, really grateful to Stanley for his work having enthused me with it.’
The British Academy Scotland Awards were streamed live across BAFTA channels, with a special highlights programme on BBC Scotland, which is now available on the BBC iPlayer.
