Award ceremonies would be boring without the token political speech – the Bafta TV Awards are no exception

Doesn’t Bafta know that British actors don’t do obedience? Did none of their execs see Benedict Cumberbatch’s magnificent rant about the shame of the refugee crisis at the end of his globally streamed performance as Hamlet? Or know that when a British director is told to be quiet, he or she will very likely do precisely the opposite? It’s what makes our television and film industry so interesting and so independent.

Hence, Bafta’s nannying emailed exhortation, sent by its head of television, to nominees before its TV Awards show this weekend, asking that acceptance speeches should “include a short anecdote about the production” is hilarious wishful thinking.

Presumably the Academy is nervously remembering last year when a furious Peter Kosminsky, picking up the best TV drama series prize for Wolf Hall, attacked the Government for cutting BBC funding, and his star Mark Rylance echoed it – and thought, oops, it looks like there could be a bunch of loose cannons up on stage, starting with that Cumberbatch, or Robbie Coltrane, or even Danny Dyer – who thanks to Who Do You Think You Are, now knows he is related to Edward III and might well appear in a ruff – and started getting a bit sweaty about it.

Of course, as any parent of a teenager will know, the minute you start telling someone not to do something, the urge within them to do it can be overwhelming. Perhaps Phoebe Waller-Bridge, up for best female performance in Fleabag, had no notion of taking the Tories to task over Brexit. Perhaps now she will. The possibilities are endless. Will Robbie Coltrane, nominated for his role in National Treasure, produce a saltire and exhort Scottish independence? Could Claire Foy (The Crown) slide in a quick line about benefit cuts? It’s tempting.

One envisages the nominees, (one of whom happens to be Ed Balls), huddling in the green room, deciding which one of them would like to be pointed about grammar schools, or fox-hunting, or go for gold over social care. And if Joanna Lumley, who is going to get a Bafta Fellowship, doesn’t use the podium moment to campaign for her godforsaken garden bridge, the nation will feel short-changed.

Because the Bafta TV Awards, hosted by the fearless Sue Perkins with only an hour’s time lag, do have a wondrous possibility to stray far from the autocue. Now that they have been enhanced by Bafta’s ham-fisted horror of controversy, it has the potential to be grimly riveting. They are far from Bafta’s film night and a galaxy away from the other worldly, over-scripted Oscars where the only possible hiccup is that the wrong envelope is opened.

This is because they represent British popular culture like no other gong show does (bar maybe the National TV Awards, during which Judy Finnegan’s top memorably fell off). These actors and directors are our stars, people who come into our bedrooms, living rooms and kitchens on a weekly or nightly basis. The relationship is direct and personal. Even in this multi-platform age, TV shows are still the stuff of the British water cooler.

Plus, who on earth wants to deliver, or indeed hear, weary anecdotes about larks behind the cameras on a television production? The fun stuff is up there on screen. As the producer Sally Woodward Gentle, nominated for best drama series (The Durrells), was reported as saying, “Needless to say, I’m not preparing. I’ve only got anecdotes about pelicans. I can’t think what Happy Valley’s could be.” Indeed.

The one exception in this is perhaps a behind the camera story about the racer snakes, whose wicked assault on desperate baby iguanas in Planet Earth II is up for Must See Moment, (against Dyer in his ruff and Balls doing Gangnam Style). I’d be happy to hear anything about how that was captured. In every other case, bring on the awkward squad and let’s make the podium political.