Adolescence Dominates Bafta TV Awards with Four Wins

Netflix drama Adolescence dominated the Bafta Television Awards on Sunday, securing four prizes, the most by any program in a single year. The Celebrity Traitors and Last One Laughing each won two awards.

Adolescence, a hard-hitting series that sparked national debate upon its March 2025 release, took best limited series. Stars Stephen Graham, Owen Cooper and Christine Tremarco won acting awards. At 16, Cooper is the youngest winner ever of best supporting actor.

Cooper's Bafta joins his Emmy, Golden Globe, National Television Award, Royal Television Society award and Actor Award for his role as a boy accused of murdering a female classmate. In his acceptance speech, he quoted John Lennon: "You won't get anything unless you have the vision to imagine it."

"So in my eyes I think you only need three things to succeed: one, you need an obsession; two, you need a dream; and, three, you need the Beatles," he said.

Graham won best leading actor as Cooper's on-screen father. It was his first Bafta after seven nominations. Tremarco took best supporting actress as the on-screen mother.

Graham urged young viewers to pursue acting. "We're not digging holes, we're not digging ditches, we're not saving lives, but we have the opportunity to tell the human condition, and we have the obligation to tell beautiful stories and we need to keep that going," he said. He closed with a Beatles nod: "The kid's already said it, but in the words of the Beatles, all we need is love."

Narges Rashidi, born in Iran, won best leading actress for portraying Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe in BBC One's Prisoner 951. She dedicated the award to the British-Iranian woman imprisoned in Tehran for six years and her family. "Your resilience, your dignity, your love through impossible circumstances have moved us all. Your courage will stay with me for the rest of my life. This is for you," Rashidi said.

ITV's Code of Silence won best drama. Rose Ayling-Ellis starred as a deaf woman aiding police with lip-reading.

The Celebrity Traitors, last year's most-watched program with over 15 million viewers, won best reality program. Host Claudia Winkleman dedicated it to the cast: "Extraordinary cast who played with dignity, gusto and their entire hearts and we love them."

Alan Carr's win on the show earned the public-voted most memorable TV moment. He joked: "Was I good? Was I really - or were the other celebrities just thick?!"

Prime Video's Last One Laughing won best entertainment program, topping BBC One's The Graham Norton Show, Michael McIntyre's Big Show and Would I Lie To You. Bob Mortimer won best entertainment performance for keeping a straight face amid rival comedians.

Steve Coogan won best comedy actor for How Are You? It's Alan (Partridge). "Doing comedy in these troubled times is so important. It's a privilege to make people laugh after all these years," he said. "I will keep on doing it. If anyone wants to know when Alan Partridge is going to die, it's about the same time that I am going to die."

Katherine Parkinson won best comedy actress for Rachel in Here We Go. Competitors included Lucy Punch, Philippa Dunne and Jennifer Saunders from Amandaland, Diane Morgan and Rosie Jones. Amandaland won best scripted comedy, four years after Motherland took the same prize. Creator Holly Walsh said: "This award means so much, to all the people who come up to us and say 'I am an Amanda' or 'I know an Amanda!'"

Gaza: Doctors Under Attack, dropped by the BBC last year over impartiality concerns and later aired by Channel 4, won the current affairs prize. Reporter and producer Ramita Navai said: "This award means so much to us." She cited deaths of women, children and healthcare workers in Gaza, adding, "These are the findings of our organisation that the BBC failed to show but we refused to be silenced and censored and we thank Channel 4."

Basement Films founder Ben de Pear asked the BBC: "Given you dropped our film, will you drop us from the Bafta screening later tonight?" He thanked Gaza journalists. The BBC had stated it aimed to report the Middle East conflict impartially. De Pear's remarks aired in BBC One's awards broadcast.

Netflix's Grenfell: Uncovered, on the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire that killed 72 people, won best single documentary.

EastEnders won best soap, Scam Interceptors best daytime show and Go Back To Where You Came From the factual entertainment prize.

Martin Lewis gave an emotional speech for consumer journalism 42 years after his mother's death when he was 11. "For six years, barring school, I barely left the house. Now I'm picking up a Bafta," he said. "Life can be transformed, it can get better. If you had told that broken, scared boy that I'd proudly be a campaigning journalist, his jaw would have dropped. So I dedicate this to consumer journalism, where I found my voice."