Age ain’t nothing but a number – at least, if you’re Glenda Jackson.
The 84-year-old actress has been shortlisted for best leading lady at this year’s Bafta TV Awards for her portrayal of Maud, an elderly woman living with dementia who struggles to piece together a double mystery.
Elizabeth Is Missing is Jackson’s first TV role in 27 years. She stepped away from acting in 1992 to pursue a career in politics, becoming a Labour MP before retiring in 2015.
The Herald’s Alison Rowat hailed Jackson’s performance as “dazzling”, noting that she “was not afraid to make [her character] unlikeable, or to sugar coat the ravages of this cruel disease”.
The veteran actress is up against Jodie Comer in Killing Eve, Samantha Morton in I Am Kirsty and Suranne Jones for Gentleman Jack.
Dame Thora Hird won a Bafta aged 89 back in 2000 for the drama Lost for Words, and Dame Maggie Smith was nominated for Downton Abbey at the age of 77.
A notable omission from this year’s list is Olivia Colman, who missed out on a nod for best leading actress, despite The Crown dominating the shortlist.
The royal Netflix story is up for best drama series, and supporting actress and actor for Helena Bonham Carter as Princess Margaret and Josh O’Connor as a young Prince of Wales.
But the Queen herself - Oscar-winner Colman played the monarch - has been snubbed.
Gritty Sky drama Chernobyl – an unflinching portrayal of the events surrounding the 1986 nuclear disaster – is also a heavy hitter in the nominations.
It is up for best mini-series, as well as leading actor for Jared Harris and supporting actor for Stellan Skarsgard.
Chernobyl is showered with nominations –11 – in the craft categories, meaning it is the biggest nominee, with 14, for the TV and craft gongs combined.
The lack of diversity at the Bafta film awards in January became a major talking point, with the director Steve McQueen saying the awards risked becoming “irrelevant” if they continued to ignore BAME talent.
But the TV nominations showed signs of improvement, with representation of BAME actors in all categories, except for lead actress, double that of the previous year.
Nominees included Sex Education’s Ncuti Gatwa, double-nominee Gbemisola Ikumelo for Famalam, and Star Wars actress Naomi Ackie, who played a supporting role in the latest series of The End of the F***ing World.
BBC Three hit Fleabag is up for three of the main TV awards, including scripted comedy.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Sian Clifford, who played sisters in the show, are both nominated, for best female performance in a comedy programme.
Fleabag is up against three Channel 4 shows – Catastrophe, Derry Girls and Stath Lets Flats – for best scripted comedy.
Brexit: The Uncivil War, which covers Dominic Cummings’ story in the run up to the 2016 referendum, could win best single drama for Channel 4. It featured Benedict Cumberbatch in the role of the Vote Leave mastermind – before his time as Number 10 adviser – and told the story of the controversial, data-driven political campaign for Brexit.
Newsnight’s interview with the Duke Of York is in the running for best news coverage.
Victoria Derbyshire: Men Who Lost Loved Ones To Knife Crime is also nominated, months after the BBC announced her programme would be axed as part of a string of cuts.
EastEnders has been snubbed in the soap/continuing drama category, despite triumphing last year.
Casualty, Coronation Street, Emmerdale and Holby City are up for the award.
Leaving Neverland, the explosive documentary which featured interviews with two men who allege the late Michael Jackson routinely abused them as boys, is up for best factual series.
The BBC has 48 TV Bafta nominations - not including craft - while Channel 4 has 22, ITV has 10, and Netflix and Sky both have eight, according to Bafta figures.
Leading actor hopefuls are Callum Turner from The Capture, Harris in Chernobyl, Stephen Graham in The Virtues and Takehiro Hira in Giri/Haji.
A separate gong, voted for by the public, Virgin Media’s Must-See Moment Award, features a confessional scene in Fleabag and Nessa’s Gavin & Stacey proposal among the contenders.
The awards will be held behind closed doors on July 31.
The Virgin Media British Academy Television Awards ceremony will air on Friday July 31 on BBC One with the British Academy Television Craft Awards taking place online on Friday July 17.
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