BAFTA TV Awards

Last night was the BAFTA TV Awards. As you should know if you follow this blog anything like regularly (or if you read it once during February/March) you'll know I love awards! The TV BAFTAs are great because they celebrate British TV, unlike the BAFTA film awards which celebrate a lot of American films as well, generally the only American or foreign programmes that are nominated for the BAFTA TV awards are in the International or Audience Award category.

Graham Norton is a fabulous host. Serious isn't his style, his dry wit and sarcasm are always something I personally enjoy! He isn't a very gracious loser, losing out twice to Ant & Dec, but he makes us laugh regardless and if there was an award for Sassiest Host he'd win every time.

There were some very very worthy winners last night, highlights for me were Olivia Colman winning Best Leading Actress. She is just fantastic. I was also very pleased to see Katherine Parkinson and Richard Ayoade both win for The IT Crowd, I loved that show and I thought they really deserved it.
I have to admit I was also very happy when Gogglebox won Best Reality and Constructed Factual, Gogglebox started out as a guilty pleasure and now I watch it every week. I don't know why, it's just great!

What was surprising though, is that BBC1 only got two awards, BBC2 got none, but BBC3 also received two. I'm sure it'll raise some debate that if BBC3's original programming is winning BAFTAs, why is it being axed from TV. I know the audience is younger and therefore accessing iPlayer is much more commonplace than say those who watch BBC4, but, the budget being reduced should definitely be questioned!

Image from bafta.org

The TV BAFTAs marks the last big awards show now, which is sad, but there's lots of great TV to be watching, so it's OK!

The Double

The Double is Richard Ayoade's latest film. It is based on the book by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I won't pretend to know anything about Dostoyevsky, but you don't really need to going in.

The film stars Jesse Eisenberg as Simon James, he is quiet, struggles with his identity, and feels pretty much invisible. He is overlooked by everyone, including his elderly mother, and Hannah (Mia Wasikowska), his love interest (whom he watches from his apartment with a telescope, instead of talking to her, until the suicide of a man who was following Hannah causes them to have an actual conversation). The arrival of James Simon (also Jesse Eisenberg) at work causes Simon James much distress. James Simon is his exact double in looks, and his exact opposite in personality and demeanour. At first Simon and James are friends, James offers to help Simon with his crippling low self esteem issues, but soon James begins to take over Simon's life. Thus ensues Simon James' identity crisis, struggling to cope that this double was everything he wanted to be and everything he hated at the same time, yet he was powerless to stop his behaviour, stop him taking credit for his work and stop him pursuing Hannah. 

Visually the film is very interesting, a very dark colour scheme (lots of browns and blacks), everything is square, and the film has no sense of time. Sometimes it feels very old fashioned, and sometimes it feels like it is set in quite a dystopian future, which only adds to the overall sense of uncertainty that carries throughout the film for the viewer. Saying that, it isn't challenging to watch nor is too confusing. Fans of Ayoade's first film Submarine will notice the inclusion of pretty much all the main cast in some small way which I have to admit to it being a nice little touch, and just shows they must have all enjoyed working with Ayoade enough to come back even for a bit part.

While The Double is strange, it's enjoyable and quite humorous in places, so I would say if that's your sort of thing then don't miss it!