Britain’s slightly down-at-heel version of America’s Academy Awards has been going since 1947. And they have always courted Hollywood. The British Film Academy was formed by a coterie of eminent men (and one woman) of the screen, chaired by the director David Lean, and the awards ceremony was quickly added to give the organisation some lustre. The awards were bronzes designed by Henry Moore (the “face” statuettes used today were introduced in 1959) and American director William Wyler’s Second World War veterans’ melodrama The Best Years of Our Lives won Best Film. Best British Film went to the IRA thriller Odd Man Out. Individual awards for actors were introduced in 1953 – Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh were the Hollywood big-hitters honoured that year – and then, six years later, the BFA merged with the Guild of Television Producers and Directors, leading to the introduction of joint film and TV awards.

This led to some incongruous juxtapositions. In 1994 Steven Spielberg collected two Baftas for Schindler’s List alongside Richard Wilson (aka Victor Meldrew) who won in the best light entertainment performance category. In 1998 the film and TV ceremonies were separated and the mobile phone company Orange began sponsoring the event. In 2000 the film awards were moved forward to preempt the Oscars and two years later, when the Oscars were moved from March to February, the Baftas followed suit. The idea is to guarantee kudos for the British awards by making them an unmissable stepping stone on the Hollywood studios’ annual Oscars campaign trail.

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