Winners
- Best Actor
- Winner: John Thaw — Inspector Morse (ITV)
- Other nominees: Joss Ackland — First And Last ; John Gielgud — Summer's Lease ; Alfred Molina — The Accountant
Sidney Edmond Jocelyn Ackland, CBE is an English actor who has appeared in more than 130 film and television roles. He was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for portraying Jock Delves Broughton in White Mischief (1987).
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades, and who, along with his contemporaries Peggy Ashcroft, Laurence Olivier, and Ralph Richardson, dominated the British stage of much of the 20th century. A member of the Terry family theatrical dynasty, he gained his first paid acting work as a junior member of his cousin Phyllis Neilson-Terry's company in 1922. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art he worked in repertory theatre and in the West End before establishing himself at the Old Vic as an exponent of Shakespeare in 1929–31.
Summer's Lease is a novel by Sir John Mortimer, author of the Rumpole novels, which is set predominantly in Italy. It was first published in 1988 and made into a British television mini-series, first shown in 1989. The title "Summer's Lease" is a play on a line from William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18: And summer's lease hath all too short a date. The novel involves the leasing of a Tuscan villa for the summer holidays. It is divided into six parts: "Preparations", "Arrival", "First Week", "Second Week", "Third Week", and "The Return".
- Best Actress
- Winner: Diana Rigg — Mother Love
- Other nominees: Peggy Ashcroft — She's Been Away ; Judi Dench — Behaving Badly ; Gwen Taylor — A Bit of a Do
Dame Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg, is an English actress. She is best known for playing Emma Peel in the TV series The Avengers (1965–68), Countess Teresa di Vicenzo, wife of James Bond, in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), and Olenna Tyrell in Game of Thrones (2013–17). She has also had an extensive career in theatre, including playing the title role in Medea, both in London and New York, for which she won the 1994 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. She was made a CBE in 1988 and a Dame in 1994 for services to drama.
Jo Anne Hart better known by her stage name Mother Love is an American author, actress, motivational speaker and humorist.
Dame Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft,, known professionally as Peggy Ashcroft, was an English actress whose career spanned more than sixty years, and who, along with contemporaries John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson, dominated the British stage of the mid-20th century.
- Best Comedy (Programme or Series)
- Winner: Blackadder Goes Forth
- Other nominees: After Henry ; The New Statesman ; Only Fools And Horses
Blackadder Goes Forth is the fourth and final series of the BBC sitcom Blackadder, written by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton, which aired from 28 September to 2 November 1989 on BBC One. The series placed the recurring characters of Blackadder, Baldrick and George in a trench in Flanders during World War I, and followed their various doomed attempts to escape from the trenches to avoid certain death under the misguided command of General Melchett. Aside from its references to a number of famous figures of the age, the series is particularly noted for its criticism of the British Army's leadership during the campaign, culminating in the poignant ending of its final episode.
After Henry is a British sitcom that aired on ITV from 1988 to 1992. Starring Prunella Scales and Joan Sanderson, it had started on BBC Radio 4 in 1985, finishing in 1989. It was written by Simon Brett. After Henry was made for the ITV network by Thames Television.
The New Statesman is a British sitcom made in the late 1980s and early 1990s satirising the United Kingdom's Conservative Party Government of the period. It was written by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran at the request of, and as a starring vehicle for, its principal actor Rik Mayall.
- Best Light Entertainment Performance
- Winner: Rowan Atkinson — Blackadder Goes Forth
- Other nominees: Barry Humphries — The Dame Edna Experience ; David Jason — Only Fools And Horses ; Victoria Wood — Victoria Wood
Rowan Sebastian Atkinson is an English actor, comedian and screenwriter best known for his work on the sitcoms Blackadder and Mr. Bean. Atkinson first came to prominence in the BBC's sketch comedy show Not the Nine O'Clock News (1979–1982), receiving the 1981 BAFTA for Best Entertainment Performance, and via his participation in The Secret Policeman's Ball from 1979. His other work includes the 1983 James Bond film Never Say Never Again, playing a bumbling vicar in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), voicing the red-billed hornbill Zazu in The Lion King (1994), and featuring in the BBC sitcom The Thin Blue Line (1995–1996). His work in theatre includes the 2009 West End revival of the musical Oliver!.
John Barry Humphries, is an Australian comedian, actor, satirist, artist, and author. He is best known for writing and playing his on-stage and television alter egos Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson. He is also a film producer and script writer, a star of London's West End musical theatre, an award-winning writer, and an accomplished landscape painter. For his delivery of dadaist and absurdist humour to millions, biographer Anne Pender described Humphries in 2010 as not only "the most significant theatrical figure of our time … [but] the most significant comedian to emerge since Charlie Chaplin".
The Dame Edna Experience is a British television comedy talk-show hosted by Dame Edna Everage. It ran for twelve regular episodes on ITV, plus two Christmas specials.
- Best Drama Series
- Winner: Traffik
- Other nominees: Inspector Morse (ITV); Mother Love ; Summer's Lease
- Best Single Drama
- Winner: The Accountant
- Other nominees: Bomber Harris ; First And Last ; She's Been Away
- Best News Coverage
- Winner: BBC News — Square Massacre
- Other nominees: BBC Berlin Wall Coverage; BBC Nine O'Clock News — Kate Adie Secret Report from Chinese Hospital; ITN Coverage of Romania
- Best Factual Series
- Winner: Forty Minutes
- Other nominees: Arena (BBC / BBC2); Around the World in 80 Days ; World in Action
- Flaherty Award for Single Documentary
- Winner: First Tuesday — Four Hours In My Lai
- Other nominees: Everyman: Romania — State of Fear; Lost Children of The Empire; Viewpoint '89: Cambodia — Year 10: A Special Report by John Pilger
- Huw Wheldon Award for Arts Programme or Series
- Winner: Omnibus: Art In The Third Reich
- Other nominees: Arena — Tales From Barcelona (BBC / BBC2); The South Bank Show — Barry Humphries; The South Bank Show — Dustin Hoffman
- Light Entertainment Programme or Series
- Winner: Clive James On The '80s
- Other nominees: The Dame Edna Experience ; Victoria Wood ; Whose Line Is It Anyway?
- Best Children's Educational Documentary Programme
- Winner: The Really Wild Show
- Other nominees: Blockbusters ; Choices: Who'd Be a Woman; Scene: My Brother David
- Best Children's Entertainment / Drama Programme
- Winner: Maid Marian and her Merry Men
- Other nominees: The BFG ; The Chronicles Of Narnia; Woof
- Foreign Programme Award
- BAFTA Fellowship Award
John Edward Thaw, was an English actor who appeared in a range of television, stage, and cinema roles, his most popular being television series such as Inspector Morse, Redcap, The Sweeney, Home to Roost and Kavanagh QC.
Inspector Morse is a British detective drama television series based on a series of novels by Colin Dexter. It starred John Thaw as Chief Inspector Morse and Kevin Whately as Sergeant Lewis. The series comprises 33 two-hour episodes produced between 1987 and 2000. Dexter made uncredited cameo appearances in all but three of the episodes.
ITV is a British free-to-air television network with its headquarters in London, it was launched in 1955 as Independent Television under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to BBC Television, that was established in 1932. ITV is also the oldest commercial network in the UK. Since the passing of the Broadcasting Act 1990, its legal name has been Channel 3, to distinguish it from the other analogue channels at the time, namely BBC 1, BBC 2 and Channel 4. In part, the number 3 was assigned because television sets would usually be tuned so that the regional ITV station would be on the third button, with the other stations being allocated to the number within their name.
