Emmys 2021: the winners, the losers, the speeches – live!

Oh wow another upset here with another behind the scenes win for Hacks, nominated for just one episode in this category compared to three for Ted Lasso. Lucia Aniello is back on stage to take the award, a little surprised to be winning two in a row for a show that really has flown under-the-radar compared to most of the bigger comedies of the year. Go Hacks!

A refreshing change here from even more Ted Lasso love for the surprising dark horse of the category: HBO Max’s smart comedy about comedy Hacks. It’s, for me, the best comedy nominated tonight and for a show about the importance of women in comedy, it’s nice to see women get an award for writing it. Expect star Jean Smart showing up on stage later too …

The team at Saturday Night Live pretty much own this category and even in a patchy year (but when is it not a patchy year for SNL), they have found themselves crowned winners yet again. This is the fifth win in a row and in another difficult 12 month period, it has been at least impressive on a technical level how the show has been able to vault itself back given the pandemic.

Aaaand again this is also the sixth win in a row of this award by a not-too-surprised John Oliver, who starts his speech by paying tribute to the recently retired Conan O’Brien, who was also nominated, then reminding everyone to look up clips of the late Norm Macdonald.

No surprise here with the sixth win in a row in this category for John Oliver and his extremely deserving team. It remains the smartest of its type, although with Apple bringing Jon Stewart back in the coming weeks, could he be here next year? (He was the most recent non-John winner of this award.)

A sad start to this award with a heartfelt tribute from Kerry Washington for one of the nominees who died recently, Lovecraft Country’s Michael K Williams. It would have made for a perfect final goodbye but it’s more love instead for The Crown and for Tobias Menzies, who couldn’t be there. Not even in London!

A category dominated by two shows – The Crown and The Handmaid’s Tale – with just one slot afforded to a newbie – Lovecraft Country. Predictably it was one of the actors from The Crown who won out – Gillian Anderson for her divisive portrayal of Margaret Thatcher. Back to not-quite-sleepy-yet London for Anderson’s acceptance speech, not the last we will be hearing from The Crown bunch tonight.

Back to London and a very excitable audience congratulating director Jessica Hobbs in a category that showed more diversity than usual (three women, three men). “Not a lot of women have won this award so I feel like I’m standing on the shoulders of some really incredible people,” Hobbs says.

Our first view of the London ceremony which looks pretty swanky, if a little tightly packed, with a win for one of the most -nominated shows of the night. More for The Crown on the way, if they can stay awake that long.

It’s going to be a big night for Mare then with Evan Peters beating out stiff competition from the stars of Hamilton for the HBO drama’s second award of the night. He thanks Kate Winslet “for BEING KATE WINSLET”, and this win will at least make up for the Hahn loss on Twitter given how loved the actor is online, thanks to his place in the Murphyverse (he was trending earlier just because of his nomination).

A bit of a surprise here given that, if at least Twitter were to be believed, Kathryn Hahn would scoop this for her devilish, viral turn in WandaVision. But an early sign here of the love for HBO’s Mare of Easttown given that Julianne Nicholson had a rather unshowy role in the grim crime drama. It was an excellent performance and nice to see recognition for a hard-working actor who hasn’t always received her due. A rather mean “play her off” musical moment though. More for Mare on the way.