Comedian Harry Hill won best entertainment performance at the Bafta TV awards, taking the coveted prize for the second year in a row. Hill beat Stephen Fry, Ant and Dec, and Jonathan Ross, who was nominated despite being suspended by the BBC for three months over offensive phone calls to actor Andrew Sachs. However, Hill's “TV Burp” show lost out in the best entertainment program category, with the “X Factor” talent show triumphing for the third time. In the glittering ceremony in London, David Attenborough picked up the specialist factual Bafta for “Life in Cold Blood,” his series on reptiles and amphibians - the eighth time he and his wildlife programmes have been honoured here, and his sixth Bafta which comes almost 50 years after he won his first award. “Our thanks, of course, go to the spitting cobras, axolotls, golden frogs, dwarf chameleons, those happy tortoises, and this (award) belongs not to me or to them but the production team,” the 82-year-old said. Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse took the award for best comedy programme for “Harry & Paul”, David Mitchell won in the best comedy performance category for “Peep Show”, and “The IT Crowd” was named best situation comedy. Comedy double act Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders were presented with the Fellowship, the Academy's highest accolade, in recognition of their popular shows together and their individual programmes such as “The Vicar of Dibley”. Actor and director Branagh, best known for his Shakespearean roles on stage and on screen, took his first Bafta for a television appearance for “Wallander,” which he produced and also stars in as a Swedish detective. Accepting the best drama award, which comes 20 years after he won a film Bafta for Henry V, Branagh thanked the BBC for commissioning the show. Golden Globe-winning US drama “Mad Men,” about an advertising agency in 1960s New York, won the prize for best international program. The Bafta for best actor went to Stephen Dillane for “The Shooting of Thomas Hurndall,” a drama about the death of a British peace activist in Israel. Another favourite who missed out was June Brown, who has played the role of Dot Cotton in the soap opera “EastEnders” since 1985. She lost out in the best actress category to Anna Maxwell Martin for “Poppy Shakespeare.”
