Stars descend on Glasgow as BAFTA Scotland Awards return

Red-carpet glamour returned to Glasgow as the stars descended on the city for the first first-full BAFTA Scotland Awards since 2019.

Peter Capaldi arrives at the BAFTA Scotland Awards in Glasgow. Picture: Jane Barlow/PA Wire

Doctor Who stars Peter Capaldi and Ncuti Gatwa, Outlander favourites Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe and Succession star Brian Cox were all in attendance at the screen sector’s annual showcase.

Capaldi received an outstanding achievement award in recognition of a 40-year career in film and television, which was launched when in Bill Forsyth cast hi in comedy-drama Local Hero, which Capaldi highlighted as the pivotal moment of his career.

Big winners included darkly comic crime drama Guilt, which was named best TV scripted show and saw creator Neil Forsyth honoured as best film and TV writer, ahead of prison drama Screw and submarine thriller Vigil, while Phyllis Logan – who presented Capaldi with his award – was named best TV actress.

Other winners included Dougray Scott, who was named best TV actor for his role as tortured detective Ray Lennox in Irvine Welsh’s series Crime, while Izuka Hoyle won the best film actress honour for her role as Camille in Boiling Point.

Heughan won the audience award ahead of Cox and Gatwa.

Capaldi said: "I really don’t know how it happened that Bill Forsyth came out of nowhere and picked an art student to be in Local Hero. I was just knocking about in bands in Glasgow at the time. I came back to my flat one night and he was sitting in the kitchen. The lady whose flat it was had been a costume designer for him. I had had a few drinks and was quite vocal. I obviously made some impression on him - he came to my next gig and said: ‘Do you want to be in a film?’

“Local Hero was fabulous. It was just outrageous to suddenly find myself standing next to Burt Lancaster. It was a wonderful experience.

Jack Lowden arrives at the BAFTA Scotland Awards in Glasgow. Picture: Jane Barlow/PA Wire

"For me, my memory of it was an experience very like the film. I wasn't used to being up north. Being up there and actually seeing the Northern Lights and being sucked into that kind of Caledonian fairytale was actually happening to us.

"The Scottish film industry really wouldn't be what it is without Bill Forsyth. He was single-handedly making feature films with a very particular individual take. He was finding actors and performers in all kinds of places, and he found me. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him.

"You don't really think you are putting a career together or anything like that. Actors have very little control over their lives. You have to get lucky. You try to work hard but things have to fall in your favour and they did for me. I still tried to do my best and to see people appreciate that was very sweet.”

Asked if he had any advice for Gatwa, who has become the latest actor to be cast in the main role in Doctor Who, said: “I would just say that I was delighted that he is the next Doctor.

Ncuti Gatwa arrives at the BAFTA Scotland Awards in Glasgow. Picturee: Jane Barlow/PA Wire

"He's a fantastic choice – I’m just thrilled for him and for the audience. I think he will do a fabulous job. There’s nothing that I can tell him, other than it’s a fabulous ride.

“You get to see humanity at its best from a very strange and privileged position.

The awards ceremony heard calls for the industry to rally in support of the campaign to secure the future of the Filmhouse cinema in Edinburgh after its operator called in administrators who have put it onto the open market.

Jack Lowden, who beat Capaldi to the best film actor award for Benediction, which they both starred in, said: “If you don’t know the Filmhouse, you should know it is the equivalent of the GFT in Glasgow. I’m going to use this opportunity to say something controversial – Edinburgh needs your help.

Dougray Scott arrives at the BAFTA Scotland Awards in Glasgow. Picture: Jane Barlow/PA Wire

“The folk who lost their jobs are in our family – projectionists, ushers, box office workers, event organisers. We're either in this together or we are not. We’re all part of the same eco-system.

“It’s not just a good cause. All of us in this room have no cause with these cinemas. The stories we choose to tell and the issues that we choose to give voice to will remain untold and unheard without these independent cinemas.”

After accepting the audience award, Heughan said: "I want to accept this on behalf of everyone on Outlander who has worked day in and day out to make this the most amazing show that we can."Outlander is this wee show that started in 2013 in an abandoned electrics factory in Cumbernauld, which we now call Cumbernollywood.

“We now have five sound stages, vast workshops and a huge costume department."We have now made seven seasons of Outlander - 91 episodes in total - which has employed 2800 Scottish crew, 650 cast and 5000 extras. We've built 300 sets in 145 locations.

“We've invested in a scheme that had led to 150 trainees working in film and TV in Scotland and everywhere else.

“We’re seen in 48 territories, in the US alone, more than 10 million people watch the show on Starz. You can see it in Japan, Brazil and South Korea."Outlander-related sites generated more than 3.2 million visitors in 2019. Outlander has done this, not just for film and TV in Scotland, but for Scotland and for tourism.

Outlander star Sam Heughan arrives at the BAFTA Scotland Awards in Glasgow. Picture: Jane Barlow/PA Wire

“I really want to thank the fans for supporting this, appreciating us and respecting us.”

Speaking later, he added : “I was almost shouting at the audience because I am so passionate about the show.

“It has achieved so much for Scotland and it has helped nurture so much talent. I'm very proud of it.”

Forsyth recalled making the second series of Guilt under tight Covid restrictions at the start of 2021. Filming is underway on a third instalment, reuniting brothers Max and Jake, played by Mark Bonnar and Jamie Sives respectively.

Forsyth said: “You're trying to get actors to develop a chemistry as a relationship, but they couldn’t even socialise at all away from the set. They had to come from different hotel rooms, with different drivers.

"The great thing with the series we’re filming now is that the actors can get together, have a meal and have a few drinks.

"It’s been brilliant to get the brothers back together for the third series. It will be getting deeper into them and their families. There will be a few twists along the way but I don’t feel I’ve got anything left to give in terms of who they are and their relationship.

"The great thing about Guilt is that we’ve always brought in really good actors for each series.

"We’ve got a couple of really exciting names in the series we’re filming just now. Over the three series we've got to work with the absolute cream of Scottish acting. It’s been an absolute thrill.”

Logan said: “Neil Forsyth’s writing is just phenomenal. Guilt is so original – I don’t know another show like it. I don’t know where Neil gets his ideas from but his writing is what makes it stand out the way it does. It is a joy to be involved in something that I’m actually a fan of.”

Scott, who is filming a third series of Crime, said: “Irvine and I spent 12 years trying to get the show off the ground. You just don’t know how it is going to go.

“When we started working on the scripts I thought they were really, really good. The cuts looked pretty good too. Then it got the reaction and the reviews that it did. I’m just really proud to have been involved in it.

"I don’t want to say too much about the new series. It will be a bit darker, but a bit funnier as well. Lennox has gone away, had a breakdown and come back revive and refreshed. You think he has moved on to a different place, but you get drawn into his past a lot more in this series.”