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Octogenarian actress Liz Smith won Best Actress, for playing tipsy pensioner Norma Speakman in The Royle Family, at last night’s controversial British Comedy Awards.

The 85-year-old, who landed her first professional role in her fifties, beat Catherine Tate to take home the award for her role in the programme’s special, The Queen of Sheba.

But romantic comedy series Gavin & Stacey was the evening’s big winner. The show, which plays on digital channel BBC Three, won three awards – Best New British Television Comedy, Best Female Comedy Newcomer for Ruth Jones and Best Male Comedy Newcomer for James Corden.

David Mitchell beat Jack Dee to win Best Television Comedy Actor for Channel 4 series Peep Show, which also scooped the Best Television Comedy gong, while Stephen Fry was awarded the British Comedy Lifetime Achievement Award.

The ceremony, hosted by Jonathan Ross, went ahead despite ITV pulling its plans to broadcast the awards live, and preventing other channels from airing the ceremony by paying a £700,000 blocking fee.

ITV “suspended” the broadcast after an investigation began when it emerged that viewers in the 2005 show were phoning in votes for the People’s Choice Award after Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway had already won.

The phone-in scandal and ITV’s decision to pull the awards broadcast didn’t sit well with host Ross, who made several jibes during the evening.

He said of the awards: "Up until two days ago we were holding this event in an open prison. We're still in the dock but [Chris] Langham is free".

He joked about the fact that an investigation into the awards was still taking place to ensure there has not been any more incidents of cheating the viewers: "Lawyers are looking into it but that doesn't mean anything is wrong. It's just research.

"We don't know for sure if this will ever go out or not so if you win an award this year, like most of the telephone votes it doesn't really count and you will still be charged."

He went on to say that ITV bosses had cancelled the TV People's Choice vote because they "believe people are scum and don't care what they think."

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