Stanley Baxter receives BAFTA Scotland award
- Stanley Baxter has received the Outstanding Contribution title at the BAFTA Scotland Awards 2020
- He said: "Thank you, BAFTA Scotland, for this honour I'm very, very pleased. Thanks a lot"
- Other BAFTA Scotland winners include Guilt, Scot Squad and Ncuti Gatwa
The results of the British Academy Scotland Awards 2020 have been announced.
Veteran comedy actor Stanley Baxter was presented with the Outstanding Contribution to Film and Television award.
Baxter enjoyed huge fame from the 1950s onwards. A Glasgow native, he starred in a string of hit films with James Robertson Justice and Leslie Phillips, made countless long-running, headline stage appearances, and a similarly long string of his own, self-titled TV series and seasonal specials from as early as 1963.
Working on both the BBC and ITV, his hit sketch shows mixed song and dance, mimicry, film and television spoofs, and a range of other wild comic characters, well into the 1990s. The 2000s have seen Baxter continue to work, albeit less frequently, with a number of radio series starring his comic talents. The Stanley Baxter Playhouse in particular ran for six series from 2006 to 2014.
Speaking from his home in London, Stanley Baxter said: "I don't think I could have been anything else but a performer. I was so rotten at everything else I tried to do. Normally at school, you know you find out there, what you have a talent for, and it turned out I had no talent at all, but really it gave me all my interest with showbusiness interest. And that was true all of my life. Thank you, BAFTA Scotland, for this honour I'm very, very pleased. Thanks a lot."
Sir Billy Connolly, Alan Cumming, Elaine C Smith, Armando Iannucci, Ford Kiernan and Tom Allen were amongst the comedians paying tribute to the entertainer.
Billy Connolly said: "Hello Stanley! Billy Connolly here. Hoping that you're nervous. I'm hoping you're a wreck sitting in your seat, feeling like hell. I know that you don't like this kind of thing, but you deserve it. Nobody deserves it more. The work you put in in the 60's and 70's it stands on its own. You're a marvel and you've got beautiful legs."
Alan Cumming commented: "I really do think that Stanley has - inadvertently probably - given me the sort of outlook I have on acting and writing and everything I do really, because so many of the things he was parodying, those sketches and big musical numbers and everything I saw as a little boy, I was seeing his parodies of them before I'd seen the original things. So, my whole way that I look at life, is that I'm looking for the parody even though it hasn't been parodied yet, and I'm really, really grateful to Stanley for his work having enthused me with it."
Baxter recently released his autobiography, in which he came out as gay. The book's initial run sold out in its first day of publication.
The other comedy-related winners in the awards were:
Television - Scripted
The comedy drama was up against Deadwater Fell and Elizabeth Is Missing.
Entertainment
Scot Squad for the Chief's Election Interviews special
The show was up against Selling Scotland and Test Drive.
Actor - Television
The other nominees were Guilt actors Mark Bonnar and Jamie Sives.
Specialist Factual
Greg Davies: Looking For Kes
Director - Fiction
Robert McKillop for Guilt
Other winners in the awards included Outlander, Glenda Jackson and television editor Phyllis Ironside, who received the Outstanding Contribution to Craft title.
The British Academy Scotland Awards were streamed live across BAFTA channels. The ceremony can be re-watched on YouTube:
Jude MacLaverty, director of BAFTA Scotland, says: "This year has been an incredibly challenging one for the industry, and of course beyond, so we are absolutely delighted to have been able to recognise the achievements of the very best creative talent in Scotland across the film, games and Television industries, in some way this year.
"Although our Awards had to take a different format this year, it has been a brilliant evening, and we would like to thank our incredible hosts, guest presenters and wonderful partners for helping us deliver such a brilliant show during these difficult times. It really has been absolutely fantastic to celebrate the inspiring work that's being produced in Scotland over the past year, and we would like to offer our warmest congratulations and raise a virtual glass to all our worthy winners and nominees."
A full list of winners can be seen at bafta.org