“‘Love” would be a strong word, but I like the Baftas, hard. I don’t care especially who wins; I could take or leave the acceptance speeches, except where they’re phenomenal (Samantha Morton). But the photos – all those magnificent faces that only actors know how to make – the “I’m so surprised to have won on this completely unsurprising occasion” face; the “of course I don’t mind not winning, the winner who won is, by happy chance, much more important to me than myself” face; the knowing side-eye, the straight-down-the-lens candour, the beaming sincerity. These are faces only the pros can make perfect. If the rest of us tried any of them, we’d look like we just got caught shoplifting.
And into this Bafta array, as its president, steps Prince William. This job was not really optional for him. The only time in the organisation’s history that it hasn’t been led by a member of the royal family is when it was Richard Attenborough, who is like royal-plus. William, grinning at the rising stars Phoebe Dynevor, Ayo Edebiri, Sophie Wilde and Mia McKenna-Bruce, hits the summit of his endearing awkwardness. In the great schism of the princes, in which all right-thinking Britons were supposed to pick a side, everyone who chose the elder and who was not motivated by fervour against the wokerati, misogynoir or keenly felt anti-Americanism was really responding to William’s self-consciousness.
