Meera Syal calls for more diversity in TV industry as she wins Bafta award

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The TV industry needs more diversity, “not just in front of the camera but in the writers’ rooms, in makeup vans and around tables where deals are done”, the actor Meera Syal said as she accepted her Bafta lifetime achievement award on Sunday.

Syal, who is best known for starring in Goodness Gracious Me and as one of the first British Asian people to regularly star on British TV, thanked Bafta for “seeing us” as she was accepted into the fellowship, the TV industry’s highest accolade.

She dedicated her win “to all my fellow travellers, all the ones who’ve been made to feel because of their race, sex or class that their stories don’t matter. They do because the untold stories are the ones that change us, and sometimes can change the world.”

Putting her glittering bindi on her face-shaped Bafta award, Syal, 61, recalled how growing up as a “chubby brown kid from Wolverhampton I got othered a lot”, and how her father had studied philosophy and dreamed of being a singer and a poet, yet encountered the attitude: “Never mind bloody Plato, can you drive a bus or not?” on his arrival in the UK.

Bafta chair Krish Majumdar described Syal as a “national treasure”, whose role in Goodness Gracious Me – shown on BBC Two from 1998 to 2001 – had “changed the game”.

“You have paved the way for so many others – seeing is believing. I wouldn’t be standing here if it wasn’t for you,” he said.

Majumdar used his final speech as chair of Bafta before stepping down to urge the TV industry to continue building on the “seismic changes made over the past three years” in diversity and representation.

Prof David Olusoga was also given a Bafta special award for his history documentaries, which have examined black British history as well as the legacy of slavery and colonialism.

In his acceptance speech, Olusoga said he had been inspired by David Attenborough.

“If I have a hope it’s that people entering the industry today, people from backgrounds like mine, minority communities, council estates, that they might find their journey through the industry a little easier.”

The stars of British television paraded down the red carpet into the ceremony at the Royal Festival Hall in the glorious sunshine as crowds in London’s South Bank craned for photos.

Referencing the pressure on comedians to demonstrate balance, co-host Romesh Ranganathan said that balance would require describing the Bafta audience both as British TV’s luminaries as well as “shark-eyed narcissists”.

It was a big night for I Am Ruth, Channel 4’s emotional family drama about the devastating impact of social media on a teenager’s mental health, which won best single drama as well as best actress for Kate Winslet, who starred in the show with her daughter, Mia Threapleton.

In a tearful speech, Winslet urged “the people in power and who can make change – please criminalise harmful content … we don’t want it, we want our children back, we don’t want to lie awake terrified for our children’s mental health”.

She asked young people listening who “feel trapped in an unhealthy world” to “please ask for help – there is no shame in admitting you need support”.

Derry Girls, which has finished after its third series, also won big. The show took home the best comedy award, prompting creator Lisa McGee to urge “please never change Channel 4 and keep commissioning shows like ours”.

In an encouraging sign for a new format, there was also a double win for the BBC’s duplicitous gameshow The Traitors, which won best reality and constructed factual, while host Claudia Winkleman picked up the award for best entertainment performance.

Double awards also went to Apple TV+’s Bad Sisters, a black comedy about domestic abuse, which is understood to be the streaming platform’s first Bafta win. The award for best supporting actress went to Anne-Marie Duff, and the show, created by Sharon Horgan, took home best drama.

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Despite multiple nominations, medical comedy-drama series This Is Going to Hurt only took home one award on the night, for its star Ben Whishaw in the leading actor category.

In the best short form category, Channel 4’s How to Be a Person, a drama series featuring the real-life perspectives of teenagers, won.

Specialist factual went to Adam Curtis’s Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone, which looks into the collapse of communism. Collecting the award, Curtis said it drew on 35 years of BBC stock footage. “It’s something only the BBC could do, it really was: to collect that historical moment in real granular detail is extraordinary.”

Best daytime TV went to the BBC’s The Repair Shop: a Royal Visit. Presenter Jay Blades praised the BBC for putting a “black guy from Hackney with a gold tooth” on prime-time TV.

In the winner’s press conference, Traitors’ creator Mike Cotton said that series two, which begins filming later this year, would be different, featuring “new twists and turns”.

Blades said his favourite aspect of the The Repair Shop was “when [men] cry on the show” discussing their emotional problems. “Men should be showing their vulnerability,” he said.

Anne-Marie Duff said she has been surprised how men have engaged with Bad Sisters. She was recently stopped by a group of men in a running club who wanted to talk to her about coercion. “It reminds you it’s really worthwhile telling these kinds of stories.”

Kate Winslet said that despite having won dozens of awards, winning Baftas is still “huge”.

“I’m so proud because we made something that really touched people, and people really thought about it and talked about it, and still come up to me in the street … that’s the most powerful thing.”

Mo Farah shared how filming the documentary of his experience being trafficked as a child had been cathartic, and how he hoped it would make other children who have had similar experiences feel less alone.

“It was so hard, I stopped three times in the middle and said I can’t do it … [I shared] things I kept inside me for 30 years. I definitely do feel different.”