How do you get people to care about the Baftas? This Sunday night, Britain’s foremost film ceremony faced the same uphill battle that every awards show faces this year: distracting controversies, audience fatigue, and, with some noteworthy exceptions, a rather middling lineup of films. Bafta’s solution, it seems, is to go with the tried and true, tapping David Tennant for the second year running to host its star-studded ceremony.
Don’t get me wrong: audiences seem to love David Tennant. The Scottish actor kicked off BBC One’s Baftas telecast with a skit set backstage, in which he received passive-aggressive advice from a number of famous faces, including Helen Mirren and Brian Cox, who materialised in his dressing room mirror. Cox’s Logan Roy-tinged pep talk segues into a kilt-clad rendition of The Proclaimers’ “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)”, which Tennant belts out while walking into the Royal Festival Hall auditorium, enlisting many of the seated stars in attendance as backing singers – James McAvoy, Harriet Walter, Selena Gomez among them. In the wrong hands, this kind of kitsch and cringey opening would seem downright excruciating. Tennant, earnest and boyish, just about sells it.
