DANNY Dyer was the main man at last night’s TV Baftas — as he scooped his first award.
He received a huge round of applause as he made his way to collect his Male Comedy Performance trophy for Sky’s Mr Bigstuff and then, in characteristic style, dropped an F-bomb.
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He shouted: “F***ing hell, I’m choked up.”
Host Alan Cumming later apologised.
Ex-EastEnders star Danny, at the bash at London’s Royal Festival Hall with daughter Dani, went on: “Comedy performance? They thought my acting was so bad, it was funny.”
And he jumped at the chance to take the mickey out of the fact he often plays bad boy roles.
Praising co-star Ryan Sampson, he joked: “He’s one of the greatest things to come out of Rotherham. That’s not saying much.”
He then added: “He’s one of the best actors this country’s ever produced and he’s never done the same thing twice — which isn’t something I can say.”
Despite Danny’s popular win, the TV Baftas again overlooked most of Britain’s biggest and most talked about shows.
Instead, judges dished out gongs to programmes and actors few viewers knew.
Netflix’s Baby Reindeer, ITV’s Mr Bates Vs The Post Office and BBC One’s Gavin & Stacey and Strictly got just one award each.
Hugely popular shows such as BBC One’s The Traitors and Disney+ drama Rivals were snubbed.
The Bafta panel’s surprising choices included giving the Entertainment Performance gong to campaigning comedian Joe Lycett.
Fellow nominees Claudia Winkleman, Ant & Dec, Graham Norton, Stacey Solomon and Romesh Ranganathan all missed out.
Leading Actor and Supporting Actor awards went to Lennie James and Ariyon Bakare respectively, for BBC One drama Mr Loverman, about a gay Antigua-born Londoner living his life in the closet.
Mr Bates Vs the Post Office stars Monica Dolan and Toby Jones were nominated for Leading Actress and Leading Actor.
But it won only the Limited Series prize.
Speaking afterwards, writer Gwyneth Hughes said the win would be of huge importance as the victims of the scandal are still fighting for justice.
She said: “It’s not over yet, it’s a complicated situation and no one seems to know what has happened. But us being on the front page with our Baftas will get it back in people’s minds again.”
Baby Reindeer was nominated in the same three categories as Mr Bates but won only the Supporting Actress award, gleefully received by Jessica Gunning.
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She explained how the show had captured the imagination of the country when it was released on Netflix last April.
She recalled: “My family and I went on holiday to Wales when it first came out.
“There was this school group there and they were like, ‘Are you the little reindeer?’ And then round the corner, there this guy who was, I think, in his 90s and like, ‘Congratulations on the reindeer show’.
“In what world would you get this scope of so many people had seen it? I don’t think there’s been much like that, really — something that’s kind of attracted the attention of all different types of people.”
Less well-known dramas given the nod included BBC One banking drama Industry with Marisa Abela named Leading Actress.
Memorable Moment Award was won by Dianne Buswell and blind Chris McCausland’s waltz to You’ll Never Walk Alone on Strictly last year.
Dianne accepted it and read out a message from funnyman Chris which joked: “After 22 years in comedy . . . a Bafta for dancing. I’ll take it but please let them all know, it hurts.”
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Life’s grand for Rylan & pal Rinder
By Rod McPhee
RYLAN Clark was also a surprise winner — alongside pal Rob Rinder — for their BBC travelogue, Rob And Rylan’s Grand Tour.
The cultural adventure across Italy bagged the Factual Entertainment gong, beating the BBC’s ratings smash Race Across The World.
Receiving his gong, a stunned Rylan, 36, said: “This is so surreal, thank you so much to Bafta for this. We really didn’t know what we were making when we first landed in Venice.
“We watched it for the first time in the edit and I turned to Rob and said, ‘Rob we’re either going to get cancelled or we’re going to win a Bafta’. And I’m so glad it was the latter.
“Genuinely, it’s been the biggest pleasure to make this show — two gay guys that have gone through a divorce . . . not to each other . . . to go somewhere and we actually found ourselves out there. And a year or so on, we’re different people because of that show.”
Rob, 46, and Rylan are now making a second series of the show for the BBC — in which they travel to India.
