Olivia Colman revs up for Bafta battle as ‘golden age’ of TV drama is hailed

 
Rivals: comedy award contenders Olivia Colman and Tom Hollander in Rev (Picture: BBC/Giles Keyte)
Miranda Bryant8 April 2015
The Weekender

Sign up to our free weekly newsletter for exclusive competitions, offers and theatre ticket deals

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

Olivia Colman was today given the chance to win her fourth Bafta award as a “golden age” of British television drama was trumpeted.

The actress’s nomination for top female performance in a comedy programme, for her role as the vicar’s wife in BBC sitcom Rev, marks the fourth year in a row she has been put forward for the Bafta television awards.

Colman, 41, who is pregnant with her third child, won a Bafta last year for Broadchurch and received two awards in 2013 for Accused and Twenty Twelve — for which she was also nominated the year before.

Her Rev co-star Tom Hollander is also nominated for male performance in a comedy programme.

The BBC triumphed over other channels in many categories of the nominations for the British Academy honours — especially in drama.

Leading the nominations were BBC One’s drama Happy Valley, BBC Two’s Marvellous, BBC One’s The Missing and BBC Two’s Line Of Duty, which each had three.

Other stars singled out for individual nominations were Benedict Cumberbatch for leading actor — his third nomination, for Sherlock — Strictly Come Dancing host Claudia Winkleman, who gets her first Bafta nomination for entertainment performance, and Sheridan Smith, who is vying for the leading actress title for her performance in Cilla.

Cucumber star Freddie Fox, who announced the nominations this morning with Amanda Abbington at the Bafta headquarters in Piccadilly, praised Colman, saying she represents the best of British drama.

He told the Standard: “Her versatility, her bravery, her charm enables her to be a great mum and move us to tears in Tyrannosaur and make us roar with laughter in Rev. She’s very deserving of the praise being heaped on her.”

Bafta chairwoman Anne Morrison said British television was undergoing a “real golden age of drama” and added: “I think it’s an amazing time for drama... from Marvellous, to Line Of Duty, Happy Valley, The Missing, those are coming through really strongly.”

She said: “There have been some really strong female performances this year, I think that’s going to be a hotly-contested category, for leading actress.”

Up against Smith in the leading actress category is Happy Valley star Sarah Lancashire — who last year won supporting actress, Georgina Campbell, for BBC Three’s Murdered By My Boyfriend, and Line Of Duty star Keeley Hawes. Morrison said the awards reflect the changing nature of how people watch TV, with nominations for Netflix dramas House Of Cards and Orange Is The New Black.

The awards ceremony will be at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, on May 10.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in