Davidson to watch Scottish Baftas via video link after slur row — SkimNews
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- John Davidson asked Bafta Scotland to let him watch its 15 November Glasgow ceremony via video link from a separate room with family and friends, after shouting a racial slur at presenters Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo at the February Bafta Film Awards.
- Bafta Scotland said it worked with safeguarding and inclusion experts to allow Davidson to take part "in the safest way possible for all," and will announce winners on 15 November at a ceremony hosted by broadcaster Edith Bowman.
- I Swear, which tells Davidson's story of growing up with Tourette syndrome in 1980s Scotland, has been nominated for seven Scottish Baftas and scooped three prizes at the Bafta Film Awards in London in February.
- Davidson said he was "deeply mortified if anyone considers my involuntary tics to be intentional or to carry any meaning" and that he left the February auditorium early because of the distress his tics were causing; he received an MBE in 2019 for Tourette's awareness work.
- Bafta thanked Davidson for his "dignity and consideration of others" and apologized for putting guests in a difficult position, saying it would keep "inclusion at the core of all we do."
- BBC apologized for not editing out the slur from its BBC One broadcast, which aired on a two-hour delay and remained on BBC iPlayer until the following day.
- Peter Mullan, Robert Aramayo, Scott Ellis Watson, and Shirley Henderson are among the I Swear cast nominated for Scottish Baftas, while Peter Capaldi, Jack Lowden, Dougray Scott, and Robert Carlyle are up in the Actor Television category.
Why it matters: Bafta praised inclusion as "at the core" of its work, yet the man whose involuntary Tourette's tics are the subject of its three-award-winning film I Swear will now watch the Scottish ceremony from a separate room via video link — forcing Bafta to operationalize that rhetoric at its own Glasgow event on 15 November.
Ask SkimNews
