Veteran actor Phil Davis has said he has resigned his Bafta membership in protest at a number of aspects of Sunday’s televised awards ceremony, including the omission of Bernard Cribbins from the In Memoriam section.
Describing the show as “an embarrassing travesty”, Davis – best known for a string of films and TV shows including Quadrophenia, Vera Drake, and Whitechapel – announced his resignation on social media. He added: “Cutting deserving winners speeches for toe-curling non-interviews. Poor Richard E Grant pretending to arrive in a Batmobile and no Bernard Cribbens [sic] in memorium.”
Davis’s complaints appear to revolve around a number of issues. In an attempt to make the awards show more audience-friendly, Bafta set up an interview studio hosted by This Morning’s Alison Hammond, where celebrities and award-winners were interviewed; as a result, recipient speeches were cut for broadcast, including one by Lesley Paterson, the British co-writer of All Quiet on the Western Front (which led the awards count on the night, winning seven).
Davis also joined a chorus of disapproval over Cribbins’ absence from the segment honouring prominent film industry figures who died in the previous year. Cribbins appeared in a string of films, including Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 AD, The Railway Children and Alfred Hitchock’s Frenzy, though is arguably better known for his TV work, which included Jackanory, The Wombles and Doctor Who. In response to earlier criticism, including from Cribbins’ Railway Children co-star Sally Thomsett, a representative for Bafta said that Cribbins “will be remembered in the TV Awards in May”.
The changes to the TV format for the awards show did not appear to affect ratings significantly, with Broadcast reporting the show achieved an average of 2.6m and a 16.6% audience share (and hitting a peak of 3.8m in its final stages) for its transmission on BBC One, part of which was live for the first time. This is slightly higher than the 2022 show, which scored 2.5m and 16%, but a sizable improvement on 2021’s “virtual” edition, which pulled in 1.9m and 11%. However, it compares unfavourably with the 2020 show, which averaged 3m and 19%, at that point the lowest ratings since 2006.
A representative for Bafta said the organisation does not comment on individual memberships.
