Sketch duo scoop two Broadcast awards

Sketch duo Cardinal Burns were double winners at the Broadcast Awards tonight.

Seb Cardinal and Dustin Demri-Burns’s E4 series was named best comedy ahead of fellow nominees Fresh Meat, Hunderby, Mrs Brown’s Boys, Rev and Twenty Twelve.

Plus they scooped best multichannel programme in the ceremony, organised by TV trade magazine Broadcast, beating Celebrity Juice, Dynamo, Him And Her, Hunderby and Threesome.

The success follows the pair winning best sketch show at last year’s British Comedy Awards, where they had also been nominated in the breakthrough and best new comedy programme categories.

Meanwhile, Holy Flying Circus, BBC Four’s account of the blasphemy row over Monty Python’s Life Of Brian was named best original programme at the Broadcast Awards. Written by Tony Roche, its cast included Darren Boyd, Steve Punt, Rufus Jones and Phil Nichol.

And The Chase, the ITV quiz show which features comic Paul Sinha as one of the experts to be beaten, was named best daytime programme.

However, Nina Conti’s film A Ventriloquist’s Story: Her Master’s Voice missed out in the documentary category to 7/7: One Day In London. Conti’s story of taking her mentor Ken Campbell’s old ventriloquist’s dummies to ‘Vent Heaven’ was nevertheless the only non-terrestrial programme to even be shortlisted in this category.

The Broadcast Awards, hosted by Rob Brydon, was held at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London and attended by more than 1,000 people working in TV.

BBC Two was named channel of the year, while the BBC’s comprehensive Olympics coverage won best sports programme.

Published: 31 Jan 2013