BAFTA TV Awards pre-show to live stream online in place of red carpet with very special guests
The event will be hosted by comedian Tom Allen and include interviews with nominees and celebrity guest presenters.
We've known for a while that the delayed BAFTA TV Awards 2020 ceremony will look a bit different than previous years' iterations of the event - and now another new change has been unveiled by the Academy.
BAFTA has announced that a live streamed Pre-Show will precede this year's ceremony, taking the place of the usual red carpet programme which documents the nominees arriving at the venue.
The show will be hosted by comedian Tom Allen and will include interviews with nominees and celebrity guest presenters in studio and via video link-up.
Allen said of his hosting gig: "I’m delighted to be bringing you behind-the-scenes interviews at the Virgin Media BAFTA TV Pre-Show and can’t wait to help you celebrate this year’s wonderful TV talent before the big night. I bet BAFTA provide nice crisps too.”
Available to view on all of BAFTA's social channels - Twitter, YouTube and Facebook - the pre-show will begin at 6pm and lead into the main event at 7pm.
Internationally-acclaimed comedian, musician, actor and writer, Tim Minchin will open and close the show with two songs he wrote especially for his recent Sky series, Upright.
Speaking about the upcoming performance, Minchin said: “I would very much like to be in a lovely theatre in beautiful London, dressed in an on-loan tuxedo, trying to stay sober enough to remember the lyrics I last-minute wrote for the opening of UK telly’s night of nights.
"As it is, I’ve pre recorded the song from Sydney in the 25-yr old tux I had in my closet, and I remembered the words fine because we filmed it in the morning, and neither the pandemic nor the high quality of affordable Australian wines have as yet driven me to AM drinking. (I’m incredibly honoured to have been asked and am excited to see how the whole thing is put together, given how very hard the BAFTAs folk have worked to make it special.)”
The BAFTA pre-show will feature interviews from Jodie Comer, Stephen Graham, Mo Gilligan, Callum Turner, Glenda Jackson and Jamie Demetriou - and many more.
The prestigious ceremony had originally been scheduled for Spring before a postponement was announced in March as the extent of the coronavirus pandemic became clear- with the awards now being held on July 31st, presented by first-time BAFTA host Richard Ayoade.
It is the first time the awards have ever been presented behind closed doors, with the nominees invited to get involved through a combination of video link-ups and pre-recorded acceptance speeches.
The full list of BAFTA 2020 TV nominations was announced on Thursday 4th June 2020, with Sky Atlantic’s miniseries Chernobyl leading the way with 14 nominations, including best miniseries, best leading actor for Jared Harris and best supporting actor for Stellan Skarsgard.
Other programmes to score impressive nomination hauls include Netflix’s hit royal series The Crown with seven as well as Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s critically acclaimed comedy series Fleabag and Joe Barton’s crime epic Giri/Haji, both of which picked up six nominations.
The Virgin Media British Academy Television Awards air on Friday 31st July at 7pm on BBC One - find out what else is on with our TV Guide
