Sheridan Smith scoops best actress gong and Lenny Henry receives top honour at Broadcasting Press Guild Awards

 
Best actress: Sheridan Smith (Picture: Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA)
Emma Powell13 March 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.

Sheridan Smith scooped the award for Best Actress at the 41st Broadcasting Press Guild Awards earlier today.

The 33-year-old actress was presented with the gong for her portrayal of Cilla Black in ITV’s biopic, Cilla.

Smith – who arrived late to pick up her drama performance gong at the National Television Awards because of traffic – looked stunning in a chiffon green blouse and black wide leg trousers as she picked up her latest award at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane this afternoon.

The ceremony also saw Toby Jones honoured with the Best Actor accolade for his role as Neil Baldwin in BBC2’s Marvellous.

Lenny Henry - who was recently unveiled as the host of the Olivier Awards 2015 - received a standing ovation as he was honoured with the Harvey Lee Outstanding Contribution to Broadcasting for his work championing diversity in the industry and for his 30 year contribution to Comic Relief.

BBC 2 drama The Honourable Woman starring Maggie Gyllenhaal fought off competition to scoop the award for Best Drama Series while Channel 4's Benefits Street and Gogglebox won Best Documentary Series and Best Factual Entertainment. The award for Best Single Documentary went to BBC1’s Baby P: The Untold Story.

Full list of winners:

Best Factual Entertainment

Gogglebox – C4

Best Single Drama

Marvellous – BBC2

Best Drama Series

The Honourable Woman – BBC2

Best Single Documentary

Baby P: The Untold Story - BBC 1

Best Documentary Series

Benefits Street – C4

Best Multichannel Programme

Crackanory - UKTV Dave

Radio Programme of the Year

Germany: Memories of A Nation - BBC Radio 4

Radio Broadcaster of the Year

Jane Garvey - Woman’s Hour R4

Best Entertainment/Comedy

W1A – BBC2

Writer’s Award

Sally Wainwright - Last Tango In Halifax and Happy Valley for BBC1

Best Actress

Sheridan Smith - Cilla Black in Cilla & Claire Webster in The Widower, both ITV

Best Actor

Toby Jones - Neil Baldwin in Marvellous & Lance in Detectorists BBC4

Breakthrough Award

Harry and Jack Williams, writers of The Missing - BBC1

Innovation in Broadcasting Award

Vice News for The Islamic State and other original commissions

Harvey Lee Outstanding Contribution to Broadcasting

Lenny Henry

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