We all know that ‘Bodyguard’ won big and that Ant and Dec triumphed in the Best Presenter category for the 1000th time at this year’s National Television Awards, but there were many low-key moments that almost flew under the radar during Tuesday night’s ceremony.
From hidden nuggets in speeches, to awkward blunders and unfortunate caught-on-camera gems, here’s the things you might just have missed…
David Dimbleby shouts out Stacey Dooley
The former ‘Question Time’ host had a lot to say as collected his Special Recognition award – from backing the BBC against the likes of Netflix (while also appearing on ITV, awks), to calling on politicians to say what they’re really thinking.
However, what we enjoyed most was his shout out to ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ winner Stacey Dooley, who he called “one of the best young reporters on television”. Aww.
Emma Willis goes full-on blonde bombshell
In a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment during David Dimbleby’s speech, the camera cut away to Emma Willis applauding in the audience. At least we *think* it was Emma Willis – we couldn’t really tell thanks to her newly peroxide blonde ’do.
We love.
Danny DeVito fluffs his awards presentation
Awards bosses scored a massive coup in securing the Hollywood legend to present the Best Drama Performance award, but he didn’t exactly put in an A-list performance when reading out the nominees.
He failed to name Richard Madden as a clip of ‘Bodyguard’ played, and could be heard saying: “Oh, you want me to say the names? They told me not to say the names.”
John Challis forgets to do his ‘good loser’ face
The ‘Benidorm’ actor was caught looking less than enthused as the ITV sitcom lost out on the award for Best Comedy to Peter Kay’s ‘Car Share’, burying his head in his hands. Did no-one tell him about awards show etiquette?
Let’s hope he was only joking, eh.
Can we talk about Prue Leith’s face too please?
The ‘Great British Bake Off’ judge looked as surprised to see ‘Paul O’Grady’s For The Love Of Dogs’ to win over her show as the rest of us.
Man nearly falls off chair as ‘Bodyguard’ wins
As those who worked on ‘Bodyguard’ went up to collect the award for Best New Drama, one of the team couldn’t wait to get on stage and decided to climb over the chair in front of him.
However, he misjudged the jump and awkwardly stumbled, making for one of the evening’s more comical moments.
‘Emmerdale’ star gets dropped as his castmate gets overexcited
Someone else who came a cropper during the ceremony was ‘Emmerdale’ star James Moore.
After winning the award for Best Newcomer, he was carried to the stage by one of his co-stars in a touching display of celebration.
However, as they got to the stage, James ended up getting dropped before having to make his speech. Ouch.
Paul O’Grady’s jacket
Now, we’re just going to put this out there – we liked Paul O’Grady’s jazzy jacket, but some people in the Twittersphere had a few ideas about what it looked like.
The ‘Loose Women’ get peckish
They may not have won the award for Best Daytime show, but at least they had some sarnies to make up for it.
Who was Danny Dyer talking about in his speech?
The ‘EastEnders’ star got a bit emotional as he went up to collect his award for Best Serial Drama performance, namechecking Harold Pinter in his speech.
He said: “I want to dedicate this award to Harold Pinter, a man I loved very, very much and I miss him. He believed in me when no-one else did.”
If you were wondering what the story is there, Danny credits the Nobel Prize winning screenwriter and director with being his mentor and turning his career around, having been cast in his play, ‘Celebration’, in 1999.
Danny went on to appear in two more of his works before his death in 2008, and recently honoured his memory by starring in ‘A Slight Ache’ and ‘The Dumb Waiter’, as part of the Pinter at The Pinter season.
Alison Hammond finally gets the recognition she deserves
Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield did the ‘thank yous’ as ‘This Morning’ won the Best Daytime award, but forgot to name-check one very important person in the team – Alison.
She wasn’t going to let that slide though, tapping Phil on the shoulder and saying “and me!”.
The woman deserves an NTA of her very own, in all honesty.
