Guest Author - Pam Lawrence

As host Graham Norton arrived on the red carpet in the 70s Cortina from Life on Mars, viewers may have guessed the 2007 Bafta awards ceremony from the London Palladium would be full of surprises.

The night belonged to the hugely popular Victoria Wood, for her dramatic role in Housewife, 49, the first show she has written and starred in for more than 20 years. Based on the wartime diaries of Lancashire housewife Nella Last, the programme enabled the five time Bafta winner to show off her serious acting talent. The 54-year-old comedienne took home the award for Best Actress and Best Single Drama.

Wood, recently voted the nation's most popular comic, beat off some heavy competition from young talent in the form of Samantha Morton (Longford), Anne-Marie Duff (The Virgin Queen) and Ruth Wilson (Jane Eyre).

John Simm, a huge audience favourite for his stellar performance in the breakaway hit Life on Mars, could have reasonably expected he was going to walk home with the hardware for Best Actor. Sorry John, the judges preferred Jim Broadbent in Longford, the one off drama for Channel 4, dramatizing the career of the prison reformer and his fight to free Myra Hindley.

Last year's other drama featuring the monstrous Hindley and her equally demonic companion Ian Brady was See No Evil: The Moors Murderers, which took home the award for Best Drama Serial. Bit of a shame the judges couldn't have given that one to the great Helen Mirren's final Prime Suspect.

Life on Mars was also snubbed in the Best Drama Series category by Jimmy McGovern's hard-hitting, gritty and admittedly very good The Street, for BBC One. The people did have their say though, as Life on Mars managed to scoop the Pioneer Audience Award, the only one voted on by viewers.

Just as it seemed there could be no more unpredictability, Casualty trounced Corrie, EastEnders and Emmerdale to romp away with Best Continuing Drama, Bafta speak for best soap award. Well, after 21 long years perhaps the judges just felt they had to award the show something. But really. What were they thinking ?

The talented Ricky Gervais won his seventh Bafta Sunday night for his comedy performance in BBC Two's Extras, but the audience was sorely disappointed he wasn't there to accept his gong. At least co-star Stephen Merchant (who was also nominated in the same category) got a gag out of the situation as he accepted the award on his co-star's behalf : "I’m sure he would like me to say I’ve been robbed, and I would agree. And it’s not like he hasn’t got enough already".

Other comedy winners included The Royle Family: Queen of Sheba, (BBC One) for Best Situation Comedy, and That Mitchell and Webb Look (BBC Two) for Best Comedy Programme or Series.

It was great to see Richard Curtis, the man behind scripts for everything from The Vicar of Dibley to BlackAdder, take home the Academy Fellowship.

Unsurprisingly, the BBC was the big winner of the night, snagging nine awards to ITV's seven.