When was the last time you felt British? Mine was last week, while I was house-sitting my friend’s place, a duplex with a shared driveway. I’d been out all of Saturday, and when I drove back around 10pm, the driveway was full of teenagers drinking and chatting. I rolled down the window and timidly asked, “Do you mind if I could just drive through to my parking space?”, to which one young man replied, “Yeah, all good,” motioning his friends to move. I thought I’d survived the interaction, but suddenly, he mumbled something I didn’t hear to his friends and they all started laughing.
I knew it: this wasn’t a party; it was a great conspiracy to humiliate me. Wanting to disappear, I mumbled a half-hearted “Actually, don’t worry!” out the window, reversed out of the driveway and found a park well down the street, where I just sat and took a breather. I felt like Fleabag or Bridget Jones, but not in a cute way. Perhaps more like a distressed Olivia Colman facing those scruffy teenage boys in the Greek movie theater in The Lost Daughter.
Anyway, in a few years, when you see an exaggerated, actually bad version of that scenario in Fleabag’s third season, you’ll know I’ve gone on to have a successful career in the British screen industry. Until that happens, let’s celebrate those who already do: below, we’ll trawl through the wins at the BAFTAs, which was a big night for Conclave, The Brutalist and Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. We’ll also whip through some key guild awards from last weekend, and hear from the Wallace & Gromit team on the chilling return of Feathers McGraw.
