{"id":15073,"date":"2026-05-09T06:46:50","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T06:46:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/09\/adolescence-to-the-celebrity-traitors-who-will-win-the-tv-baftas-and-who-should-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T06:46:50","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T06:46:50","slug":"adolescence-to-the-celebrity-traitors-who-will-win-the-tv-baftas-and-who-should-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/09\/adolescence-to-the-celebrity-traitors-who-will-win-the-tv-baftas-and-who-should-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Adolescence to The Celebrity Traitors: who will win the TV Baftas \u2026 and who should? – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jack Thorne\u2019s headline-grabbing drama about toxic masculinity is the clear favourite. But might the odds be stacked against it? Here is our guide to the worthiest winners
T<\/span>his year, the Bafta TV Awards feel relatively young at 71. After all, David Attenborough has just turned 100<\/a>, and August marks the 90th anniversary of BBC television. But Sunday\u2019s ceremony is a long-established and recognised celebration of the state of British TV \u2013 which isn\u2019t always easy to predict.
The frontrunner for this year\u2019s awards \u2013 featuring new host Greg Davies \u2013 is Adolescence, which has 11 nominations<\/a>. But its chances may be affected by the qualifying period for shows \u2013 the previous calendar year \u2013 meaning entries aired between 17 and five months ago. Given that Adolescence was dropped by Netflix on 13 March last year, some voters may conclude that it has already been honoured enough<\/a>. (At last month\u2019s separate Craft awards, it surprisingly lost the Writer category to Slow Horses.)
Each panel is sequestered, meaning that jurors have no knowledge of the likely winner of a category they aren\u2019t a panellist for. But as they sometimes cast their votes based on who they think is likely to win other categories, some might vote against highly nominated shows such as Adolescence<\/a> (or A Thousand Blows or The Celebrity Traitors) \u2013 assuming they have won another category. With the same two female actors unusually nominated in both the best and supporting sections, there is a greater than usual chance of such treacherous second guessing causing nominees to miss out.
Here are my predictions and preferences.(Despite being a Bafta voter, I have no inside knowledge of winners.)
Channel 4\u2019s Troubles romance Trespasses and ITV\u2019s I Fought The Law, with a grieving mother taking on parliament, are high-class contenders but, given the impact made by digital radicalisation drama Adolescence, the failure of the Netflix sensation to win would be equivalent to a Grand National favourite tripping on a divot just before the line.
Just as the main threat to Adolescence turning its nominations into honours is patriotic voters leery of American streamers cleaning up at the British Academy, only snobbishness about Disney+ should prevent its 19th-century bare-knuckle boxing saga A Thousand Blows from knocking out its strongest challenger, BBC Northern Irish cop show Blue Lights.
If the first two predictions prove right, there will have been a lot of cutaways of Stephen Graham, given his involvement in both predicted winners. But his viscerally immersive performance of a parental nightmare feels impossible for jurors to vote against.
Probably the most contested and complex category, with Aimee Lou Wood and Erin Doherty listed for their \u201cother\u201d shows: Film Club and A Thousand Blows, rather than The White Lotus<\/a> and Adolescence. But Sheridan Smith has become the most technically accomplished and emotionally affecting British TV actor since Julie Walters (who once dominated this category) and should win for her raw portrait of deep grief turned to social purpose as campaigner Ann Ming, mother of a murdered daughter, in ITV\u2019s I Fought The Law.
Unless multiple jurors have concluded that the show has won enough already, 16-year-old Owen Cooper <\/strong>should take this for <\/strong>his pivotal performance in Adolescence \u2013 <\/strong>and deserves to, <\/strong>as his young Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights suggests a rare child star <\/strong>who could go on to a formidable adult career.
There should have been love in the jury room for Aimee Lou Wood as the moral heart of The White Lotus and Rose Ayling-Ellis in the sonically innovative Reunion. But \u2013 while it\u2019s generally better if awards are shared around \u2013 Erin Doherty\u2019s performance as forensic psychiatrist Briony in Adolescence should be shown in all drama schools as an example of the stillness and intelligence that make great screen acting.
Voters are urged to ignore external factors, which includes gender. But female comedy (in Amandaland and Things You Should Have Done) feels pitted against the humour of masculinity: How Are You? It\u2019s Alan (Partridge) and Big Boys. Glad not to have been a voter, I marginally predict the Lucy Punch show on grounds of freshness.
Those shots of nominees gamely smiling when somebody else wins should be less forced than normal here as half the possibilities \u2013 Punch, Jennifer Saunders, Philippa Dunne \u2013 are from Amandaland. This domination risks splitting the show\u2019s vote which could help multi-franchise comic genius Diane Morgan to win for the confusingly non-Amandaland-related Mandy.
A very open category, with all six results plausible and deserved. They range from TV grandee \u2013 Steve Coogan for Partridge\u2019s probing of neurodiversity \u2013 to relative newbie: Oliver Savell as the schoolboy Alan Carr in Changing Ends. (Possibly helped by Carr\u2019s Traitors boost?) As Lenny Rush (Am I Being Unreasonable?), won last year, a popular victor would be Mawaan Rizwan for Juice.
The Graham Norton Show and Would I Lie To You? have previously won. The frequently nominated Michael McIntyre\u2019s Big Show never has and that might be corrected this year. But, if there wasn\u2019t streamer-fear in the room, Prime Video\u2019s Last One Laughing feels the smart option here.
Joe Lycett, winner for the last two years, is absent, which must improve the chances of Rob Beckett and Romesh Ranganathan, who he beat both times. But a semi-declared aim of the Baftas<\/a> is to tell the story of last year\u2019s TV, which helps Claudia Winkleman for the remarkable visibility of The Celebrity Traitors.
On the same basis, The Celebrity Traitors feels a shoo-in here, especially given that, if the rival Virgin Island (Channel 4) won, Bafta would need 24\/7 damage limitation PR.
In the most progressive category, the interesting choices would be ITV\u2019s neurodiverse press conference The Assembly or Channel 4\u2019s immigration gameshow Go Back To Where You Came From. Anecdotal evidence that Bafta jurors shy away from dislikable concepts or competitors favour the former.
With slots and audiences shrinking, this category increasingly feels like trying to run Crufts in a town with only three dogs. EastEnders won last year and Casualty the two before that, so in the interests of freshness, 2022 victor Coronation Street should come round again.
Who cares much? But, marginally, BBC<\/a> One\u2019s Scam Interceptors, a real public service, over-enduring ITV quizshow, The Chase.
A ludicrous category as streamers unleash an international deluge, various of which (Adolescence, A Thousand Blows) are tactically moved to other categories due to British personnel. My vote goes to Netflix\u2019s The Diplomat,<\/em> the best TV political drama since The West Wing, but Pluribus, The Bear and The Studio run it close.
Despite jury instructions to ignore outside noise, it would be an upset if Gaza: Doctors Under Attack,<\/strong> rejected by the BBC but <\/strong>reprieved by Channel 4, a potentially attractive narrative to some jurors, doesn\u2019t win.
If Adolescence and A Thousand Blows convert nods into acceptance speeches, these may be seen as the Baftas in which the dominance of streamers over terrestrial networks reached tipping point. This category could be symbolic if two classic BBC docs \u2013 Belsen: What They Found<\/a> and Simon Schama: The Road To Auschwitz \u2013 lose out to Netflix\u2019s Surviving Black Hawk Down or, more likely, Apple\u2019s magisterial Vietnam: The War That Changed America.
Here, too, a wannabe doc-maker \u2013 Netflix\u2019s Grenfell: Uncovered \u2013 challenges a cherished British genre. Helped by his Manosphere film coinciding with voting, the UK\u2019s most recognisable documentarian feels the one to beat with Louis Theroux: The Settlers, but the closer to home emotions of One Day In Southport could give this to Channel 4.
A queasy category that asks judges to make technical distinctions between terrible scenes. The tense current context means that tough chairing may have been needed in the face-off between Sky News\u2019s Gaza: Fight For Survival and Channel 4 News\u2019s Israel-Iran: The Twelve Day War.
The only trophy chosen by public vote, this inevitably favours famous franchises with clips easily comprehensible out of context. That helps Adolescence \u2013 Jamie snaps at the psychologist \u2013 but perhaps even more so The Celebrity Traitors \u2013 Alan Carr wins.
The Bafta Television<\/a> Awards 2026 airs on BBC One at 7pm, Sunday.<\/em><\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jack Thorne\u2019s headline-grabbing drama about toxic masculinity is the clear favourite. But might the odds be stacked against it? Here is our guide to the worthiest winnersThis year, the Bafta TV Awards feel relatively young at 71. After all, David Attenborough has just turned 100, and August marks the 90th anniversary of BBC television. But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15074,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15073","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}