Doctor Who & Dickens' Bleak House Sweep Baftas

BBC drama productions Doctor Who and Dickens' Bleak House triumphed at the British Academy Television Awards. They each won two awards at the Baftas ceremony, including best drama series for Doctor Who, and best drama serial. The often controversial writer/director Ken Loach received a Bafta Academy Fellowship, describing the award as “overwhelming.”

Doctor Who's Billie Piper, who plays the Time Lord's companion Rose Tyler, accepted the award for best drama series on a stage complete with a Dalek. Doctor Who also took the Pioneer Audience Award, which was voted for by TV viewers, which Piper described as "a treat".

Doctor Who's head writer and executive producer, Russell T Davies also picked up the Dennis Potter Award for Writing. Speaking after the awards ceremony, he said: "It's lovely, it's gobsmacking, it's a programme that children watch and the family watch."

The BBC's Charles Dickens adaptation Bleak House, nominated in four categories, also claimed the best actress award thanks to Anna Maxwell Martin's performance, beating fellow Bleak House star Gillian Anderson to the prize.

"I never expected to win," Maxwell Martin said after collecting her award. "I didn't particularly want to beat Gillian Anderson. I think she's the most worthy of all of us in that particular category and obviously she's an incredible actress."

Scots actor Dennis Lawson, who played Mr Jarndyce in the critically acclaimed period drama, lost out on the best actor Bafta to Mark Rylance for The Government Inspector.

The Government Inspector, Channel 4's drama about the Dr David Kelly affair, took the award for best single drama.

BBC TV soap EastEnders beat off strong competition from Coronation Street, Casualty and Holby City to win the continuing drama award for the first time in four years.

A Bafta Fellowship was awarded to writer/director Ken Loach, who said he was both "touched and very moved" to receive the Academy Fellowship. He said: "It's a very overwhelming moment."