Three award nominations for Mackenzie Crook comedy

Mackenzie Crook's sitcom Detectorists is up for three prestigious TV awards.

Crook wrote, directed and co-starred in the low-key sitcom about a hapless pair of metal detector enthusiasts, which aired on BBC Four last October.

He's up for the Broadcasting Press Guild Awards writing awards for his scripts; while the show is in the running for best comedy and co-star Toby Jones is shortlisted for an acting award.

In the writing category, Crook is up against the established names of Hugo Blick for The Honourable Woman, Jed Mercurio for Line of Duty and Sally Wainwright for Happy Valley and Last Tango in Halifax.

Jones, is nominated for best actor for his role in Detectorists as well as BBC Two's Marvellous, facing competition from James Nesbitt for The Missing and Babylon, and David Threlfall for Tommy Cooper: Not Like That, Like This. The ITV biopic is also up for best single drama

Detectorists - which is due to return for a second series late this year – is also the only show shortlisted for the best comedy/entertainment award which is not broadcast on the dominant BBC Two.

The other nominees are Harry & Paul's Story of the Twos, Rev, The Trip To Italy and W1A.

Comedy also features highly in the multichannel award category, with three Dave shows – Crackanory, Alan Davies: As Yet Untitled and Dave Gorman: Modern Life is Goodish – up against the Discovery Channel's Ebola Exposed. The Discovery Channel is sponsoring the awards this year.

Meanwhile the BBC Two film about Dave Allen, God's Own Comedian, is up for best single documentary

The awards, chosen by journalists who write about TV and radio, will be presented next month at a lunch in central London.

Published: 12 Feb 2015