David Suchet and Lucy Cohu help Brits dominate the Emmy Awards

British actors and television shows monopolised the 36th International Emmy awards in New York last night, picking up seven of the ten awards on offer.

David Suchet (pictured left) won the best actor gong for Maxwell, the 2007 BBC film in which he portrayed the media tycoon Robert Maxwell, who died in 1991 after falling off his yacht while cruising the Canary Islands.

Lucy Cohu (right) won best actress for her role in Forgiven, a gritty drama about a suburban housewife who reports her husband for sexually abusing their daughter but later decides to rebuild their lives together.

Among the crop of British shows winning awards (not to be confused with the Primetime Emmys, which are held in September, at which the Brits did not do so well) were the BBC’s Life On Mars, starring John Simm and Philip Glenister, which picked up best drama series, and the animated series Shaun the Sheep, which won best children’s show. Channel 4’s The IT Crowd, starring Chris O'Dowd, Richard Ayoade and Katherine Parkinson, took the best comedy award.

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