BAFTA TV Awards 2023: This Is Going To Hurt leads nominations in huge win for queer TV
The 2023 BAFTA TV Awards nominations are packed with queer shows (BBC/Netflix/Twitter/Joe Lycett/Getty)
The 2023 BAFTA TV Award nominations list has been unveiled, with queer TV shows including RuPaul’s Drag Race UK and Big Boys making the shortlist.
The BBC’s acclaimed medical comedy drama This Is Going To Hurt, based on the book of the same name by gay writer Adam Kay, is the most nominated series and is up for six awards.
That includes a Best Writer nomination for Kay, a Leading Actor nod for gay actor Ben Whishaw for his role playing Kay, and a Best Miniseries nomination for the series as a whole.
Channel 4 comedy Big Boys is also one of the most nominated of the year and is up for an impressive four awards, including Scripted Comedy, Male Performance for Jonathan Pointing’s role as Danny, and two for the sitcom’s queer writer, Jack Rooke.
Big Boys, which centres around the unlikely friendship between two university students – the straight, somewhat laddish Danny (Pointing) and Jack (Dylan Llewellyn), as the latter tries to embrace being openly gay for the first time – was met with critical acclaim when released last April.
Drag Race UK season four is nominated in the Reality And Constructed Factual category, alongside runaway hit The Traitors, and honestly they are about to have a camp-off.
The Traitors host Claudia Winkleman, who regularly sent gay Twitter into a frenzy with her elaborate turtlenecks, staple fringe and melodramatic roundtable narration, is nominated in the Entertainment Performance category, alongside lesbian comedians Sue Perkins and Rosie Jones.
Professional troll and queer comedian Joe Lycett is nominated in the Features section, for his one-off Channel 4 show Joe Lycett Vs Beckham: Got Your Back at Xmas, highlighting his viral PR stunt of “shredding” £10,000 in order to convince footballer David Beckham to back out of his Qatar World Cup ambassador deal.
In the International category, Ryan Murphy’s controversial Netflix series Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story is nominated, as is gay Twitter favourite The White Lotus. Will Sharpe, who plays Ethan in the latter series, is also up for Best Supporting Actor.
While author Alice Oseman is nominated for Best Drama Writer for her work on Netflix’s seminal queer teen series Heartstopper, the show itself is glaringly absent from the rest of the nominations list.
“Shocked by the omissions for other categories,” said one fan about the Heartstopper snub.
“Very glad to see [Heartstopper] got nominated. Sad that they didn’t get a BAFTA drama nomination too,” shared another.
Other nominated series include police drama The Responder and Jenna Ortega’s much-discussed Wednesday, while the likes of Billie Piper, Imelda Staunton, and Daniel Radcliffe are up in the acting categories.
A full list of nominees is available via the official BAFTA website.
The BAFTA TV Awards will air on Sunday 14 May, and will be hosted by comedians Rob Beckett and Romesh Ranganathan.
The BAFTA Television Craft Awards, which include the Emerging Talent and Best Writer awards, will take place on Sunday 23 April.
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