Bafta TV Awards 2022: Big Zuu, Jodie Comer and Sean Bean cook up success

Larger-than-life chef and rapper Big Zuu was among the big winners at the Bafta TV Awards, sharing top honours with hard-hitting dramas Time and Help.

Big Zuu beat the likes of Graham Norton and Michael McIntyre to the prize for best entertainment performance, and his Big Eats series won the features award.

Jodie Comer and Cathy Tyson won acting prizes for Covid care home drama Help.

Sean Bean was named best actor for playing a prisoner in Time, which was also named best mini-series.

The other winners at the British television industry's most prestigious ceremony included Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, The Lateish Show With Mo Gilligan, Motherland, In My Skin and The Chase.

Sir Billy Connolly was given the prestigious Bafta fellowship.

In Big Zuu's Big Eats, on the Dave channel, the chef and his schoolfriends and sidekicks Tubsey and Hyder cook up food for different celebrities.

Describing how the trio's families had been immigrants to the UK, he told the audience in his features acceptance speech: "Representation is so important.

"Growing up, there weren't many chefs or people that looked like me on telly. And now, there's young people watching us doing our ting, going, 'You know what, if these wastemen can win a Bafta, surely we can'."

Big Zuu, who recently started a new ITV Sunday breakfast show, was more shocked to be named best entertainment performer, saying: "I kind of let it all out in the first speech."

His upbeat personality was in contrast with the tone of some of the other winners.

Together, which won best single drama, followed a couple played by James McAvoy and Sharon Horgan as they grappled with life during Covid.

In his acceptance speech, its writer Dennis Kelly read a letter from campaign group Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice calling for a public inquiry into the government's handling of the crisis to start as soon as possible.

Comer won best actress for playing a young care home worker out of her depth in Help, another one-off Covid drama.

She thanked the carers who had helped with research, saying: "The biggest reward is that they felt truly represented with the telling of this story."

Tyson was named best supporting actress for her performance as a care home resident with dementia in the same Channel 4 show.

She was among those to pay tribute to the broadcaster as the government prepares to privatise it.

She said: "I remember being a teenager when Channel 4 was born and it has had many good things to do with it, like diversity, and it was a voice for the people who were unheard at the time and it's still continued to do that."

Others to use the Bafta stage to raise concerns about the privatisation included Gogglebox producer Stephen Lambert, whose show won best reality and constructed factual.

He said: "Gogglebox might have ended when it started nine years ago because it got quite a modest audience, but a publicly-owned, risk-taking Channel 4 believed in it and they've stuck with it."

The government has said a change of ownership is "necessary to give Channel 4 the best possible tools to innovate and grow at pace without asking the taxpayer to effectively underwrite the business".

Channel 4's acclaimed 1980s Aids drama It's A Sin led the nominations, although it went home empty-handed on the night.

It was beaten in the hotly-contested best mini-series category by Jimmy McGovern's three-part prison drama Time.

And Time's Bean beat It's A Sin's Olly Alexander, among others, to the best actor award.

Bean was not at Sunday's ceremony, but his co-star Stephen Graham told the audience at London's Royal Festival Hall: "This is the reason why I wanted to be an actor as a kid, to tell stories which had a social commentary."

Matthew Macfadyen won best supporting actor for his role in US media dynasty drama Succession. He was eligible after a rule change this year that allowed British actors to be nominated for performances in foreign-made shows.

Meanwhile, Sir Billy sent a pre-recorded video message, saying he was "very proud" to accept his honorary Fellowship, and that "life is good".

"I couldn't be happier," he said, joking: "It has made me such a happy man getting these good attendance medals now my career is out the window."

Other winners included Strictly Come Dancing, which took the Must-See Moment prize - the only one voted for by the public - for Rose Ayling-Ellis and Giovanni Pernice's routine in which the music was silenced as a tribute to the deaf community.

The Bafta ceremony, hosted by Richard Ayoade, was held in person and with a full audience for the first time since 2019.