Friday Night Dinner, The Vicar Of Dibley, After Life and Sex Education up for best comedy

Friday Night Dinner, The Vicar Of Dibley, After Life and Sex Education have been nominated for best comedy in this year’s National Television Awards.

The accolades are handed out based entirely on audience vote and will be announced on September 9 at a ceremony at the O2 in London.

The shortlist does not make good reading for terrestrial TV. BBC One’s The Vicar of Dibley, which last aired a regular episode on New Year’s Day 2007, was nominated for three lockdown shorts, presented as video diaries from Dawn French’s character Geraldine Kennedy. 

And Friday Night Dinner came to an end on Channel 4 in May last year. Star Paul Ritter died at 54 while the final series was airing.

Meanwhile, Netflix’s Sex Education is due to return for third series on September  17, and After Life, from Ricky Gervais, which is expected to return for its third series within a few months.

At the weekend Gervais tweeted that editing had reached the ‘picture lock’ stage; when all cuts have been approved. 

‘Then it's a few weeks of grading, dubbing and laying on all the music.  Oh, then a couple of months translating it into 160 languages,’ he wrote.

And he added: ‘If you knew the amount of work I put into stuff you'd respect me more.’

Taskmaster is also up for the entertainment award, named in honour of Bruce Forsyth.

Alex Horne’s show is up against I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway and The Graham Norton Show.

Vote in the National TV Awards here.

Published: 17 Aug 2021