BAFTA Scotland: Guilt, The Nest, Outlander, Frankie Boyle and River City in running for awards at virtual ceremony

The acclaimed black comedy thriller Guilt, the first drama series made for BBC Scotland’s new channel, is leading the race for honours at this year’s BAFTA Scotland Awards.

Outlander is one of the contenders for the new BAFTA Scotland Audience Award. Picture: Sony/Starz

The hit show, written by Neil Forsyth, the creator of the comic character Bob Servant, will be in contention for six awards at December’s ceremony, which will be staged in a virtual format due to the coronavirus pandemic.

It will be among the contenders for a brand new audience award, the only public vote in the awards, along with other TV dramas Outlander, The Nest, River City and two documentaries – Black and Scottish and a Murder Case special.

Audiences will be able to cast their vote for the favourite TV show from today until 18 November for the new award at the ceremony which will be hosted by broadcaster Edith Bowman and comic and actor Sanjeev Kohli on 8 December.

Guilt, which was shown on both BBC Scotland and BBC 2 last autumn, was seen by more than three million people across the UK. A second four-part series has already been commissioned.

Guilt’s stars, Mark Bonnar and James Sives, who play two brothers whose lives star to fall apart after they accidentally run over an elderly man in the street, are both up for best actor, along with Ncuti Gatwa, one of the stars of the hit Netflix comedy Sex Education.

Rising screen star Mirren Mack, who is also in Sex Education, is up for best actress for her first major TV role in surrogacy thriller The Nest, up against veteran actress Glenda Jackson for her performance in dementia detective story Elizabeth is Missing and Lois Chimimba, for the pilot of new addiction sitcom Group.

Elizabeth is Missing writer Andrea Gibb and Neil Forsyth will both be up for best writer, along with Paul Laverty, for the Ken Loach movie Sorry We Missed You.

Comic Jack Docherty is in the running for two different shows in the entertainment category: a Scot Squad special in which his character Chief Commissioner Cameron Miekelson grilled the nation’s political leaders and documentary Selling Scotland.

Frankie Boyle’s Tour of Scotland series is up for best factual programme, against rapper and writer Darren McGarvey’s own series and the two-part Murder Trial special, which shed fresh light on the Margaret Fleming murder case.

Categories for best feature film and best film actor and actress were shelved this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, which closed cinemas for months and led to many new releases being put on hold, and rule changes rules which insist that eligible films must now get a cinema release.

BAFTA Scotland director Jude MacLaverty said: “Pre-Covid 19, we had decided that you couldn’t enter a film on the basis of a film festival screening alone – they had to have a meaningful release of seven days or more to give audiences a chance to see films.

Edith Bowman will be returning to host this year's awards. Picture: Andy Buchanan

“We knew that it would take maybe a year to catch up however Covid-19 then hit and lots of stuff was then pushed back. We just didn’t have enough entries to go ahead the film categories. It didn’t feel a hard decision.

"However nobody is going to miss out next year and we hope it will be a really exciting competition.”

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription.

Joy Yates