Phil Davis, an English actor who has appeared in such TV series as Doctor Who and Sherlock, as well as such films as Vera Drake, In the Name of the Father and Alien 3, said on Wednesday that he has resigned from BAFTA, calling Sunday’s awards show “an embarrassing travesty.”
He mentioned that he didn’t like the arrival of host Richard E. Grant, cuts to winners’ speeches during the TV broadcast of the ceremony on flagship public broadcast network BBC One, as well as the omission of Doctor Who actor Bernard Cribbins during the annual “In Memoriam” video about notable deaths.
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BAFTA later said though that Cribbins would be remembered during its TV Awards broadcast on May 14.
“The BAFTA awards were an embarrassing travesty,” Davis, 69, wrote on Twitter on Wednesday. “Cutting deserving winners speeches for toe curling non interviews. Poor Richard E Grant pretending to arrive in a Batmobile and no Bernard Cribbens in memorium. I resigned my membership.”
The ratings for the awards show improved over 2021 though. The BBC coverage averaged 2.6 million viewers, with the peak audience reaching 3.8 million.
In recent days, there has also been noise about the vast majority of this year’s BAFTA winners being white, three years after the #BAFTASoWhite controversy erupted and prompted the British Academy to undergo a nine-month review and overhaul that led to more than 120 changes to its awards processes and rules. Since the changes were first applied, the awards had so far been lauded for an impressively diverse array of nominees.
