Strictly Come Dancing snubbed at industry awards

Strictly Come Dancing snubbed at industry awards
Strictly Come Dancing snubbed at industry awards (Image credit: PA Wire/Press Association Images)

Strictly Come Dancing has failed to secure a nomination for best entertainment at the Royal Television Society awards. The nominations, announced today however, gave a nod to it's Saturday night rival The X Factor, which pits it against another ITV show, The Cube, fronted by Phillip Schofield, and The Million Pound Drop, presented on Channel 4 by Davina McCall. In other categories, Julie Walters is up for best actress for her role as the late politician Mo Mowlam in the Channel 4 drama Mo, which is also up for best single drama and drama writing. Miranda Hart has two nominations, for scripted comedy and comedy performance, for her BBC2 show Miranda. Cult E4 show The Inbetweeners and BBC2 vicarage sitcom Rev, starring Tom Hollander, is also in the running for the same two gongs. In the battle for best soap and continuing drama, Coronation Street, EastEnders and Casualty are nominated. Channel 4 show My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding is up for best single documentary, against Between Life And Death (BBC1), filmed in a brain injury unit, and The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan (More4), on the practice in northern Afghanistan of buying boys as private dancers who become victims of abuse. Piers Morgan is up for best presenter for Piers Morgan's Life Stories (ITV1), up against Reggie Yates for Autistic Superstars and pin-up Professor Brian Cox for Wonders of the Solar System. Ant and Dec are in the running for best entertainment performance for I'm A Celebrity... as well as Britain's Got Talent, against Charlie Brooker for Newswipe and Graham Norton on The Graham Norton Show. David Tennant is up for best actor for his role in BBC1 drama Single Father, against Jim Broadbent (Any Human Heart) and Johnny Harris (This Is England '86).

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.