Comedy on the cards for Scottish Laughtas

TWELVE months on from controversy over a depressing shortlist dominated by Neds and The Scheme, comedy is set to claim top honours at this year’s Scottish Baftas.

Whisky caper The Angels’ Share, which was the toast of the Cannes Film Festival this year, has secured nominations for writer Paul Laverty and two of its stars, Paul Brannigan and Siobhan Reilly.

Despite a number of dark scenes involving its key 
characters, the mainly Glasgow-set film has won plaudits for its humour and optimistic portrayal of a group of youngsters turning their lives around thanks to their whisky-buff mentor.

The heist drama, which won the prestigious “jury prize” at Cannes, was later given a gala premiere in Glasgow, which will be hosting the Baftas ceremony next month.

Rab C Nesbitt stars Gregor Fisher and Elaine C Smith will go up against each other in the best TV actor category, while Kevin Bridges is nominated in two separate categories, best writer, where he will be competing against Laverty, and best entertainment programme.

A controversial BBC Scotland drama investigation into Rangers Football Club, which exposed the scale of financial wrongdoing at the club, is in the running for best current affairs programme. A BBC documentary into the collapse of Royal Bank of Scotland is shortlisted in a separate category, for best documentary.

However, there is no place for the documentary film You’ve Been Trumped, which has won a string of international film festival awards and has only just had a TV screening, while Disney-
Pixar’s animated fantasy Brave was not considered a “Scottish” production, despite a string of home-grown actors giving voice to the film’s characters.

However, despite not fitting the criteria for the Scottish Baftas, it is understood that Brave will receive some form of special honour on the night.

Ken Loach, the director of The Angels’ Share, who has made a string of hit films in Scotland, is also unable to be recognised at the event because he was born south of the Border.

The annual “lifetime achievement award” for an outstanding contribution to the industry will be announced in the run-up to the ceremony. Robbie Coltrane was honoured last year.

Broadcaster Edith Bowman will present the awards, which are now an annual fixture, after the 2010 event was shelved unexpectedly.

Actor and director Peter Mullan picked up two awards for Neds, which focused on a troubled teenager growing up in 1970s Scotland, at last year’s ceremony.

The Scheme, which followed the lives of six families on an Ayrshire housing scheme, was named best factual series.

Jude MacLaverty, director of Bafta in Scotland, insisted there had been no conscious decision to ensure a more light-hearted shortlist of candidates this year.

She said: “It’s just the way 
the judging process has gone. We have very strict criteria for entry, including actors and directors having been born in Scotland, and so much of a production must have been based in Scotland.”

And the nominees are...

ACTOR/ACTRESS FILM

Paul Brannigan: The Angels’ Share

James Cosmo: Citadel

Siobhan Reilly: The Angels’ Share

ACTOR/ACTRESS - TELEVISION

Iain De Caestecker: Young James Herriot

Gregor Fisher: Rab C Nesbitt

Elaine C Smith: Rab C Nesbitt

ANIMATION

All That Glisters: Claire Lamond

I Am Tom Moody: Ainslie Henderson

The Making Of Longbird: Will Anderson

COMEDY/ENTERTAINMENT PROGRAMME

Kevin Bridges: What’s The Story?

Mrs Brown’s Boys

Sweet Dreams – Sgeulachd Patsy Cline

CURRENT AFFAIRS

Eòrpa

Rangers – The Men Who Sold The Jerseys

Travellers

DIRECTOR

Mark Cousins: What is This Film Called Love?

Michael Keillor: Young James Herriot

Zam Salim: Up There

FACTUAL SERIES

Afghanistan: The Great Game, A Personal View By Rory Stewart

The Last Explorers: Livingstone

The Story of Film: An Odyssey

FEATURES/FACTUAL ENTERTAINMENT

Antiques Road Trip

Bank of Dave

Robson’s Extreme Fishing Challenge

FEATURE FILM

The Angels’ Share

Citadel

Up There

GAME

Bad Hotel

Golf Squared

iBomber Defense Pacific

SINGLE DOCUMENTARY

Afterlife: The Strange Science of Decay

A Life Through The Lens: David Peat

RBS: Inside The Bank That Ran Out of Money

WRITER

Kevin Bridges: Kevin Bridges: What’s The Story?

Louise Ironside: Lip Service

Paul Laverty: The Angels’ Share