BBC bosses are reportedly on alert for politically-charged speeches at the BAFTA Film Awards on Sunday (February 22) following the fallout from Bob Vylan’s Glastonbury Festival set last year.
The punk-rap duo’s set was broadcast live on the BBC and saw singer Bobby Vylan lead the audience in chants of “death, death to the IDF” and “free, free Palestine”.
Following the festival, the performance was subject to a criminal investigation from Avon and Somerset Police, which was later dropped. Shortly after the festival, the BBC said it would no longer broadcast performances it deemed “high risk”.
Per Deadline, the incident has been kept in mind by BBC bosses and external producers at Penny Lane Entertainment, who are keen to avoid any similar controversy on Sunday.
The BAFTAs, unlike Glastonbury, aren’t broadcast live, so the BBC will edit a three-hour show to fit a two-hour broadcast window. Speeches are cut, but the BBC said it attempts to maintain the essence of what the winners say. Winners are free to express themselves as they like under BAFTA guidelines.
While they aren’t expecting a repeat of the Bob Vylan controversy, it’s still kept in mind, with one insider saying, “They can’t have another Glastonbury – that’s the thing they keep talking about.”
Following Bob Vylan’s set, BBC chairman Samir Shah said the decision not to pull the live feed after they made the on stage comments was “unquestionably an error of judgement”. Director general Tim Davie apologised, saying: “I deeply regret that such offensive and deplorable behaviour appeared on the BBC,” Lorna Clarke stepped down from her role as the BBC’s director of music, and the BBC partly upheld complaints over the set.
Another source told Deadline that there will be “nervousness” about anti-Donald Trump rhetoric from winners, too, though it’s thought this hasn’t been explicitly discussed in planning meetings.
The BBC cut a joke about the US President from David Tennant at last year’s ceremony, and the broadcaster said in a statement to Variety at the time, “The nature of the show is that it’s broadcast with a short delay, and edits have to be made due to time constraints.”
The awards ceremony will take place in the late afternoon on Sunday February 22, before being aired on BBC One and BBC iPlayer at 7pm. The ceremony will be hosted by Alan Cumming, taking over from Tennant.
The front runners for this year’s ceremony are Paul Thomas Anderson‘s One Battle After Another with 14 nominations, Sinners with 13, while Hamnet and Marty Supreme scored 11 nods each. British films The Ballad Of Wallis Island and Pillion scored three nominations each, while drama I Swear has five. Check out the full list of nominations here.