‘Hunderby,’ ‘Last Tango in Halifax’ Win BAFTA TV Craft Nods

LONDON — This year’s BAFTA TV Craft awards, dished out Sunday evening, included a few surprises with some of the heavyweight nominees losing out to lesser known winners.

In the ceremony’s comedy writing category, Julia Davis secured the nod for Hunderby, a show which airs on Rupert Murdoch‘s satellite broadcater BSkB channel Sky Atlantic.

Davis overcame a strong comedy film, which included The Thick Of It writers Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche and Simon Blackwell.

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In the best drama writing category, Tom Stoppard‘s scripts for BBC mini-series period drama Parade’s End was beaten to the prize by Sally Wainwright for her writing on Last Tango in Halifax.

Meanwhile Simon Cowell‘s X Factor U.K. team for the show’s season final last year missed out on BAFTA glory with the night’s entertainment team nod going to the group behind Derren Brown: Apocalypse.

Steve Boulton, one half of the creative team alongside James Rutherford, perhaps summed the specialist nature of the awards.

Boulton, who won the evening’s nod for digital creativity, an increasingly competitive category as technology continues to advance, told the audience that it was his mum’s 80^th birthday Saturday.

“After all these years she still doesn’t know what I do,” Boulton quipped when accepting the craft nod from the British Academy.

He won for his work on the Paralympics 2012 coverage for Channel Four.

The evening saw a star-studded gallery of faces contributing to a video tribute to the work of Hamish Hamilton, the live TV director specialist awarded with this year’s BAFTA Craft special award.

Bono, Beyonce, Usher and British pop star Robbie Williams lined up to pay tribute to the work while Oscar winner Danny Boyle also sent in a video tribute for his work on the opening and closing ceremonies of the London 2012 Olympics.

Said Boyle of Hamilton’s multi-camera work on the show: “Imagination is not the ability to invent, but to reveal what is already there. Hamish has that.”

Hamilton also picked up the evening’s multi-camera nod, a category in which he competed against himself for his work on the opening and closing nights of the Olympic Games 2012.

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BAFTA announced the award winners at a swish ceremony and dinner in East London hosted by TV star Stephen Mangan.

Prior to the awards, BAFTA also announced that TV sports presenter Clare Balding would be presented with a special award (for outstanding achievement in factual presenting) at the Academy’s TV nods May 12.

TV committee chairman Andrew Newman said her work covering London 2012 — on the BBC for the Olympics and on Channel 4 for the Paralympics — made her “a national treasure.”

Balding said she “may not stop smiling until the night.” Graham Norton hosts the British Academy’s TV nods at London’s Royal Festival Hall next month.

BAFTA TV Craft Award winners:

SPECIAL AWARD

Hamish Hamilton

BREAKTHROUGH TALENT sponsored by Sara Putt Associates

Tim Whitnall (Writer) — Best Possible Taste: The Kenny Everett Story Mammoth Screen/BBC Four

COSTUME DESIGN 

Sheena Napier — Parade’s End Mammoth Screen/BBC Two

DIGITAL CREATIVITY sponsored by Brightcove

Steve Boulton, James Rutherford — Channel 4 Paralympics deltatre/13 Strides/Channel 4

DIRECTOR: FACTUAL

Ben Chanan — The Plot to Bring Down Britain’s Planes Raw TV/Channel 4

DIRECTOR: FICTION

Philippa Lowthorpe — Call the Midwife Neal Street Productions /BBC One

DIRECTOR: MULTI-CAMERA sponsored by The Farm LA

Hamish Hamilton, Tapani Parm — The London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony: Isle of Wonder Done & Dusted/BBC One

EDITING: FACTUAL

Sean Mackenzie — Amish: A Secret Life BBC Wales/BBC Two

EDITING: FICTION

Trevor Waite — The Fear World Productions/Channel 4

ENTERTAINMENT CRAFT TEAM sponsored by HotCam

Stephen Bryce, Andrew Cooke, Simon Ainge, Nick Foster — Derren Brown: Apocalypse Objective Productions/Channel 4

MAKE UP & HAIR DESIGN sponsored by MAC

Christine Walmesley-Cotham — Call the Midwife Neal Street Productions/BBC One

ORIGINAL MUSIC

Stephen Warbeck — Henry IV (The Hollow Crown) Neal Street Productions co-production with NBC Universal and WNET Thirteen/BBC Two

PHOTOGRAPHY: FACTUAL

Steve Robinson — Amish: A Secret Life BBC Wales/BBC Two

PHOTOGRAPHY & LIGHTING: FICTION

Gavin Finney — The Fear World Productions/Channel 4

PRODUCTION DESIGN sponsored by The London Studios

Darryl Hammer — The Girl Wall to Wall/BBC Two

SOUND: FACTUAL

Peter Bridges — The London 2012 Olympics: Super Saturday

BBC Sport/BBC One

SOUND: FICTION

Tim Fraser, Adrian Rhodes, Keith Marriner — Richard II (The Hollow Crown) Neal Street Productions co-production with NBC Universal and WNET Thirteen/BBC Two

VISUAL & GRAPHIC EFFECTS 

Tom Turnbull — Titanic ITV Studios/ITV

WRITER: DRAMA

Sally Wainwright — Last Tango in Halifax

WRITER: COMEDY

Julia Davis — Hunderby Baby Cow Productions/Sky Atlantic