STRICTLY Come Dancing, the programme that pirouetted news presenter Natasha Kaplinsky to new fame, is favourite to waltz off with one of the top prizes at tonight’s Bafta television awards.

The show, a seemingly unlikely revival of the BBC’s original Come Dancing where sequined frocks, fixed smiles and unmoving hairdos held sway for 49 years, is set be crowned with the best entertainment award. It has become so successful that tonight’s presenter of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards, Graham Norton, hosts a spin-off series, Strictly Dance Fever.

Kaplinsky, 32, won the first series with her professional dance partner Brendan Cole and now presents the show together with Bruce Forsyth, 77, the veteran game show host.

She now has as many trophies in her glass cabinet as the obsessed contestants in the Australian dance film, Strictly Ballroom, which inspired the revival.

Earlier this year, the Oxford graduate won three prizes at the Television and Radio Industries Club awards in London. One was for Strictly Come Dancing and two for BBC Breakfast, the news show she co-hosts.

Victory tonight, coupled with the acclaim for the new Doctor Who series, would be seen as justification of the decision by BBC chiefs to resurrect programmes once thought long deceased.

Paul O’Grady, 49, previously better known as Lily Savage, is set to win the main Bafta award for an individual entertainment performance. He has come back from a heart attack three years ago that forced him to curb his heavy drinking and smoking.

His ITV daytime interview programme — which he presents as himself — has won praise and more than twice the audience of its rival on Channel 4 hosted by Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan, longstanding mainstays of daytime television.

O’Grady’s award would represent a triumph over the favourites, Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly, better known as Ant and Dec, nominated for presenting the ITV programme I’m a Celebrity . . . Get me Out of Here!.

He is also in line to beat Stephen Fry, the comedian and host of the quiz show QI, and Paul Merton, panellist on the BBC’s Have I Got News for You, who are both nominated in the same category.

The best comedy award is expected to go for the second year running to Little Britain, the BBC sketch show famous for characters such as Dafydd, “the only gay in the village”, and the yobbish teenager Vicky Pollard.

The series, like The Office before it, has risen from being a cult hit to sweeping mainstream awards. In addition to last year’s Bafta, it won three prizes at the British Comedy Awards.

Favourite for the best actress award is Anamaria Marinca, the Romanian star of the gritty Channel 4 drama Sex Traffic. One critic said her “subtle” and “assured” performance “made British actors of her age look hopelessly ‘am-dram’.” She is expected to fend off competition from actresses including the veteran Brenda Blethyn who was nominated for her role in the ITV drama Belonging, and the favourite, Anne-Marie Duff, who has won plaudits for her role in the drama Shameless, set on a rundown Manchester estate.

The favourite to win the best actor award is Michael Sheen who is believed to have impressed the panel of judges for his role as a man suffering obsessive compulsive disorder in the ITV drama Dirty Filthy Love. Sheen is nominated alongside Mark Strong for his role as a gangster in the BBC drama The Long Firm.

Sir David Frost, 66, outgoing host of the BBC interview programme Breakfast with Frost, is set to receive a fellowship of Bafta, the academy’s top honour, to celebrate his career. The Richard Dimbleby award for best presenter of a factual programme is expected to be won by Jon Snow, the Channel 4 news anchor.

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