The Groucho Club is set to mark its 25th anniversary by launching a new award to be presented to  "the most exciting arts maverick of the year". The winner of the Groucho Maverick Award - which will be open to practitioners of any artform, working anywhere in the world – will receive a £10k prize, a lifetime Groucho membership, and a limited edition sculpture. The judging panel, which includes Janet Street-Porter and John Lloyd, will announce the identity of the inaugural recipient on 24 October.

Channel 4 have announced that they are to broadcast the British Comedy Awards, screened by ITV for the past two decades, for the next three years. The network says it will show the awards live, and hope to inject "spontaneity, excitement and edge into the new look awards show". It could certainly do with it, as award shows go, it's had a very tired feeling for years now.

Channel 4 head Julian Bellamy adds: "From 'The Inbetweeners' and 'Peep Show', to our Comedy Labs and Showcases - we're passionate about comedy at Channel 4, and have a long heritage of supporting and developing new talent in this arena. After the success of our 'Comedy Gala', and our 'Alternative Election Night', we're excited about bringing the event of the comedy calendar to viewers this winter".

This year's Bafta TV awards have taken place, and Armando Iannucci's 'The Thick Of It' has taken three awards.

The show's Peter Capaldi took Best Male Comedy Performance for his role as the foul-mouthed spin doctor Malcolm Tucker, while Rebecca Front, who plays MP Nicola Murray, was awarded the Best Female Comedy Performance gong, and the programme was also named Best Sitcom. Accepting the latter award, Iannucci thanked Lib Dem Nick Clegg, for allying with the Tories and therefore "completely destroying our plans for the next series".

Other winners on the night included Kenneth Branagh and Julie Walters, who took the Best Actor and Best Actress awards, and Matthew McFadyen and Rebecca Hall, who triumphed in the supporting actor categories. Ant and Dec beat off competition in the Best Entertainment Performance category from Stephen Fry ('QI'), Harry Hill ('TV Burp'), and Michael McIntyre (with his 'Comedy Roadshow') to take their first ever Bafta for 'I'm A Celebrity'.

'Britain's Got Talent' took the Best Entertainment Programme award, 'The Armstrong and Miller Show' picked up the 'Best Comedy Programme' gong (controversial to my mind, given that Mitchell and Webb and Stewart Lee were also nominated and A&M's current TV venture is decidedly mediocre, but what do I know?) and 'EastEnders' won in the soap, aka 'Continuing Drama' category.

Elsewhere, ITV's 'News at Ten' was rewarded for their coverage of the Haiti earthquake, the Best Current Affairs award went to Dispatches' 'Terror In Mumbai', and the documentary gong was given to BBC1 programme 'Wounded'. A Bafta Fellowship was bestowed on Melvyn Bragg, and a Special Award was given to Simon Cowell, for his services to popular TV crap. Oh, sorry, no. For "reinventing Saturday night entertainment".

British songwriters were honoured last night at the annual Ivor Novello Awards ceremony in London. That Lily Allen was the big winner of the night, taking the prize in three categories, including Best Song Musically And Lyrically for 'The Fear', which she co-wrote with Greg Kurstin. The pair were also named Songwriters Of The Year, and 'The Fear' was recognised as the most performed song of the last year. I'm never really sure if that last one really counts as a songwriting award.

Having dissed the BRITs recently (despite her winning a BRIT earlier this year), Lily later said that she thought the Ivors were the "real" awards. Which is what we all thought, until Lily Allen won three of them in one go.

Paul Weller was given the Lifetime Achievement Award, recognising 33 years of writing songs. The award was presented by Noel Gallagher, who proclaimed: "This is a man who is rock". Weller added: "I've enjoyed the last 33 years I've been writing songs and hopefully, with God's good grace, I'll do some more".

Trevor Horn won the Outstanding Contribution To British Music Award (which is different to the Lifetime Achievement Award) and Johnny Marr won the Inspiration Award (which is different to the Outstanding Contribution To British Music Award).

Here are all the winners in full:

Best Contemporary Song: Bat For Lashes - Daniel (Natasha Khan)

Best Song Musically And Lyrically: Lily Allen - The Fear (Lily Allen/Greg Kurstin)

Best Television Soundtrack: Desperate Romantics (Daniel Pemberton)

Album Award: Paolo Nutini - Sunny Side Up (Paolo Nutini)

PRS For Music Most Performed Work: Lily Allen - The Fear (Lily Allen/Greg Kurstin)

Best Original Film Score: Ice Age 3: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs (John Powell)

Best Original Video Game Score: Killzone 2 (Joris de Man)

International Achievement: Imogen Heap

Lifetime Achievement: Paul Weller

PRS For Music Outstanding Contribution To British Music: Trevor Horn

Songwriters Of The Year: Lily Allen and Greg Kurstin

Special International Award: Neil Sedaka

The Academy Fellowship: Tim Rice

The Ivors Classical Music Award: Peter Maxwell Davies

The Ivors Inspiration Award: Johnny Marr

It was those crazy Parliamentary Jazz Awards last night, the annual awards bash for the UK jazz genre, which takes place at the House Of Commons. Hosted by Paul Gambaccini in front of an audience of jazzy and political types, the winners were as follows:

Jazz Musician: Mark Lockheart

Jazz Album: The Gareth Lockrane Septet - No Messin

Jazz Ensemble: Nigel Price Organ Trio

Jazz Venue: Jazz Bar (Edinburgh)

Jazz Journalist: Mike Flynn

Jazz Broadcaster: Alyn Shipton

Jazz Publication: Jazzwise

Jazz Educator: Dr Kathy Dyson

Services To Jazz: Brian Blain

Commenting on this year's winners, MP chap Michael Connarty told ThisWeek: "The MPs are bowled over by the enormous growth and skill within the jazz industry all across the UK. Our awards this year wanted to reflect and highlight our musicians' commitment to the creative industries as well as their diverse talent. Hopefully they will be supported by general businesses and communities in their local areas to allow such talent to continue".

The nominations for this year's TV Baftas have been announced, and amongst those to get a nod is John Hurt, who has been singled out for reprising the role of Quentin Crisp in 2009 made-for-TV film 'An Englishman in New York'. The actor, who won a Bafta when he first played Crisp, in 1976's 'The Naked Civil Servant', will go up against Kenneth Branagh, Brendon Gleeson and David Oyelowo.

Other nominees include Julie Walters, Harry Hill, David Mitchell, Miranda Hart and Sophie Okonedo, all of whom are nominated twice each. Walters gets two mentions in the Best Actress category, for her appearances in 'Mo', and 'A Short Stay In Switzerland'. Hill, who has won Best Entertainment Performance for the last two years for 'TV Burp' has been nominated again in the same category, this year up against Michael McIntyre for his 'Comedy Roadshow', Stephen Fry for 'QI', and Ant and Dec for 'I'm A Celebrity'.

Armando Iannucci's 'The Thick Of It' has garnered three nominations. Rebecca Front is nominated in the Best Female Comedy Performance category for her role as MP Nicola Murray, Peter Capaldi is up for Best Male Comedy Performance for his turn as Malcolm Tucker, and the show is also up for the sitcom gong.

The winners will be announced on 6 Jun.

The Turner Prize short list has been announced, and the nominees are Dexter Dalwood, Angela de la Cruz, Susan Philipsz and The Otolith Group.

All the nominees apart from Susan Philipsz are London based. Dalwood, who has previously used such subject matter as the Manson murders and the death of David Kelly as the basis for his material, is nominated for his paintings drawing on art history. De la Cruz, who is also a painter, tears and folds her pieces and displays them in doorways and corners. The Otolith Group  - Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun - creates "overlooked histories" using archive material, and Glaswegian Philipsz does recorded voice installations.

The winner will be announced on 6 December, following an exhibition of the artists' work.

Aardman Animations – the company behind, amongst other things, Nick Park's award winning 'Wallace and Gromit' series – has taken two gongs at the British Animation Awards. They picked up two trophies, one in the Best Children's Series category for BBC show 'Shaun The Sheep', the other being the Children's Choice award for the latest W&G outing 'A Matter Of Loaf And Death'.

Other winners included 'Lost and Found', which triumphed in the Best Animated Special category, and the Beatles themed 'Rock Band' game, whose intro was judged Best Commissioned Animation.

Dennis Hopper has been given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The actor, who is reportedly terminally ill with prostate cancer, appeared at the ceremony and thanked Hollywood for being "my home and my schooling”, adding:  "Everything I learned in life I learned from you. This means so much to me. Thank you very much everyone".

Amongst those in attendance were the 72 year old star's 7 year old daughter Galen, 19 year old son Henry, and granddaughter Violet, as well as names such as David Lynch, Jack Nicholson, and Viggo Mortensen, who addressed the 100 strong crowd, calling Hopper "a complete and fertile artist" who has been "a constant source of ideas, inspiration and humour for his friends and colleagues".

James Cameron's 'Avatar' has done well at the Empire Film Awards, taking three gongs: the sci-fi movie was named Best Film, the aforementioned Cameron took Best Director, and cast member Zoe Saldana won Best Actress. Comedy star Johnny Vegas accepted the award on Saldana's behalf, joking that he'd met Saldana on "an intensive driving course in Blackpool. She had trouble with her handbrake turns, and I had problems reverse parking - so we helped each other through it".

Other winners included 19-year-old Aaron Johnson, who got Best Newcomer for his portrayal John Lennon in 'Nowhere Boy', directed by his fiancee Sam Taylor Wood, Ian McKellen, who was presented with the Empire Icon Award, and Andy Serkis, who was given the Inspiration Award. Christoph Waltz, who has triumphed in the Best Supporting Actor category at most of this year's award ceremonies, on this occasion picked up the Best Actor gong. Elsewhere, Ray Winstone took the Outstanding Contribution to British film award and Jude Law was named Empire Hero.

Guy Ritchie's 'Sherlock Holmes', meanwhile, won Best Thriller, Michael Caine's 'Harry Brown' took Best British Film, Armando Iannucci's 'In The Loop' was named Best Comedy, the Best Horror gong went to Swedish film 'Let The Right One In', and Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy went to JJ Abrams' 'Star Trek'.

Armando Iannucci's rather good political satire 'The Thick Of It' has taken three gongs at this year's Broadcasting Press Guild Awards. Peter Capaldi, who plays the show's foul-mouthed spin doctor Malcolm Tucker, took the prize for Best Actor, whilst the show also took the Best Writing and Best Comedy and Entertainment Show awards.

Elsewhere, Terry Wogan was honoured for his Outstanding Contribution to Broadcasting, Maxine Peake was named Best Actress for her roles in 'Criminal Justice' and 'The Street', and Eddie Mair was named Radio Broadcaster of the Year for his work on Radio 4 show PM.

The BBC scored highly overall, in fact, taking 12 out of the 15 gongs awarded.  Amongst the victors were 'Enid', the corporation's dramatisation of the life of writer Enid Blyton, Radio 4 staple 'Desert Island Discs', and Andrew Marr's documentary series 'The Making of Modern Britain'.

Online comedy site Chortle held their awards ceremony last night, and TV star Michael McIntyre took two awards, the Best Tour gong, and the TV and Radio Award for his 'Comedy Roadshow'. The event, which took place in London, was attended by the likes of Eddie Izzard, James Dreyfus, and Alistair McGowan, and hosted by Mark Watson, who apparently did it rather well.

Other winners on the night included Sarah Millican, who became the first woman to win the Best Headliner award, Tim Minchin, who was named Best Musical or Variety Act, Jarred Christmas, who triumphed in the compere category, and Tom Wrigglesworth, who took Best Show for his 'Open Letter To Richard Branson'. Armando Iannuci, receiving a gong for Outstanding Contribution to Comedy, joked that the award "made up for losing the Oscar" for the 'In The Loop' screenplay.

Actor John Hurt has received a lifetime achievement award at the Bradford International Film Festival. He received the honour at the National Media Museum from the festival's artistic director Tony Earnshaw, who said of the actor: "John Hurt has been leading man, supporting player and scene-stealer. Always he has breathed vivid life into believable, plausible and credible characters, often against a backdrop of fancy, whimsy or plain bafflement. He appears in the final films in the Harry Potter franchise, thus enchanting an entirely new generation of admirers. It's what going to the cinema is all about."

Speaking ahead of the presentation, which was followed by a q&a and a screening of 'The Elephant Man', Hurt told reporters of his regard for independent films, and his wish that there was a more even balance between the number of such lower budget works and the number of big studio movies being made. "It's been my constant fight all my life," he said. “All you can do is prepare the ground. You can't just say this is how it ought to be because you've got to create a public that actually enjoys it - and therein lies the difficulties".

Later, asked if he would retire, he told his audience: "I can't see any other reason to be alive unless you're taking an active interest in your area of life. If life was to be just to stop and watch television - I couldn't contemplate that as being worthwhile at all".

The festival runs until 28 March.

The Olivier Awards took place at weekend, and the biggest news is the 'The Mountaintop' - 28 year old American writer Katori Hall's second play – beat competition from the highly rated 'Enron' and 'Jerusalem' to take the Best New Play Award. The show originally premiered at the tiny Theatre503 at the Latchmere in South London, but later transferred to the West End's Trafalgar Studios, making it eligible for an Olivier.

Society Of London Theatre president Nica Burns said: "Isn't it a great fairy story? A young, black playwright – only 28 years old – and a young British director finds her in America and premieres the play at Theatre 503, they get great reviews and a British commercial producer – Sonia Friedman – takes it into the West End, it wins a major award and now it’s going to Broadway. I have a suspicion that with the award, it may come back. I think what it great is that with the award it can make a real difference for this show. I love the fact that the London theatre is so risk-taking and so healthy that we can discover a playwright who, in a sense, isn’t ours…It’s a little bit of fairy dust and that’s what theatre is about".

Other winners on the night were a bit more predictable. Rachel Weisz was named Best Actress for her portrayal of Blanche Dubois in the Donmar's production of 'A Steetcar Named Desire', Mark Rylance took Best Actor for his performance in the aforementioned 'Jerusalem', and Rupert Goold triumphed in the Best Director category for his work on the also aforementioned 'Enron'.

In terms of what I shall call 'venue spread', the Royal Court was (predictably) out in front with five gongs, whilst the Donmar took three of the acting awards and The Royal Opera House also took three awards. 'Spring Awakening' at the Novello, meanwhile, took four awards all by itself. Elsewhere, 'Morecambe' at The Duchess got Best Entertainment, and the previously reported new public-voted gong – The Audience Award For Most Popular Show – was won by 'Wicked' at the Apollo Victoria. The Outstanding Achievement award went to Michael Codron, and SOLT's special award was presented to Maggie Smith.

The Royal Television Society Awards have taken place, and amongst this year's victors were Harry Hill, who beat Ant and Dec as well as Michael McIntyre to take the Best Entertainment Performance gong, and Miranda Hart, who was named Best Comedy Actress for her role in eponymous sitcom 'Miranda'.

Other winners included 'The Thick Of It' which - most deservedly, IMO -  took Best Scripted Comedy, Charlie Brooker's 'Newswipe', which – also deservedly - beat competition from 'Britain's Got Talent' and 'The X Factor' to take the Best Entertainment Show gong, and Louis Theroux, who triumphed in the Best Presenter category for his documentary 'A Place For Paedophiles'. The latter beat Piers Morgan, nominated for that chat show he does. Ha ha.

The prize for Best Drama Series, meanwhile, went to Jimmy McGovern's 'The Street', the Best Actress honour was awarded to 'One Small Island's Naomie Harris, and Best Actor went to David Oyelowo, who appeared in the same BBC adaptation. Eastenders took the soap award, and the truly awful (I know, I've seen it) 'Big And Small' was pronounced Best Children's Programme.

Academy Award bosses have explained why they did not include Farrah Fawcett in the ceremony's 2010 In Memoriam segment. You know, the thing they do part way through the event, where they do sad music and pictures of people working in the industry who've passed away. Anyway, the family of the late actress have said they are “deeply saddened” that she was not acknowledged in the sequence, following her death from cancer in June last year.

The Academy are apologetic but say that in fact, Fawcett was better known for her TV work, which is why she was not included in the line up of late movie stars and practitioners. They also pointed out that although the actress was considered for inclusion, they can't include everyone in the montage, and added that an "an unusual number of extremely distinguished screenwriters" died this year, and the committee who decides on these things wanted to try and honour as many of those as possible.

It's clearly not the first time people have reacted badly to the non-inclusion of someone they care about. The academy's executive director Bruce Davis says: "There's nothing you can say to people, particularly to family members, within a day or two of the show that helps at all".

It's been announced that this year's Laurence Olivier Awards will be broadcast live on Radio 2. It will be the first time that it's ever been aired live on the radio, making it another first for 2010; as previously reported, the ceremony will be broadcast live via the internet for the first time too.

The special two hour radio programme will be hosted by Paul Gambaccini and presented live from the Grosvenor House Hotel in London from 8 – 10pm on 21 March. The web broadcast will be streamed at www.olivierawards.co.uk.

Bafta has said that a blunder in the first round of voting for this year's TV awards was the result of human error. The mistake meant that a number of eligible TV programmes were left off lists opened to the academy's members on Tuesday for the initial ballot to decide nominees. The organisation have not confirmed which shows they were, but reports claim that Derren Brown's 'The Events' and 'Alan Carr - Chatty Man' were amongst them.

A spokeswoman for Bafta said: "Bafta operates an online voting system across all its awards. Upon the first round of voting for the television awards opening to the membership on Tuesday, a number of omissions were spotted. The lists were immediately investigated, a human error discovered and amendments made online that afternoon".

She added that only seven percent of members had voted before the mistake was noticed, and that they had been asked to resubmit their votes. "By doing so Bafta is satisfied that the entries originally omitted have been presented fairly to every voter in this first round" the spokeswoman continued. "Neither the integrity of the voting process, nor the chances of any entrant, have been affected in any way as a result of this error".

The Academy Awards happened last night, and I expect you all know that, given that it gets a completely out-of-proportion level of coverage by the UK media. I mean, I know it's a big awards night, and everything, but I fail to see why it's so much more important than any other award ceremony. I suppose more of the world might be interested, but honestly, there's just too much chat, speculation and post-mortem on national news programmes that ought to be covering stories about war and politics.

Anyway, you have no doubt all heard the big news, which is that Kathryn Bigelow has made history by being the first woman ever to get the Best Director gong for her work on 'The Hurt Locker'. I think it's pretty shocking that a woman hasn't won it before, actually, and it really just demonstrates that women are still up against plenty of barriers, because it's certainly not that they don't have the necessary talent. Anyway, well done her.

'The Hurt Locker' also took Best Picture, and the film's Mark Boal got the award for Best Original Screenplay. It also triumphed in the film editing, sound mixing and sound editing categories. Main awards season rival Avatar, directed by Bigelow's ex-husband James Cameron, took the awards for cinematography, art direction and visual effects.

Bafta winning Brits Colin Firth ad Carey Mulligan failed to repeat their success at the Oscars, losing out to Best Actor Jeff Bridges, nominated for his role in 'Crazy Heart', and Sandra Bullock, who took the Best Actress gong for her performance in 'The Blind Side'. Which must take the sting a bit out of the Razzie she recently received (and, to be fair, turned up v. good humouredly to accept). 'Inglourious Basterds' star Christoph Waltz beat the likes of Matt Damon and Christopher Plummer to the Best Supporting Actor gong - no surprises there, as he's won it at pretty much every awards bash this season – whilst another hot favourite, US comedienne Mo'Nique, took the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her part in 'Precious'.

Elsewhere, Pixar's 'Up' won in the Best Animation Category, which doesn't surprise me, although I've not yet seen it. Sadly, Armando Iannucci et al failed to take Best Adapted Screenplay for 'In The Loop', but they were up against some fierce competiion from the likes of Nick Hornby ('An 'Education'), Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner ('Up In The Air') and the winner, of course, of that category, Geoffrey Fletcher, who adapted the screenplay for 'Precious'. In the music categories, Michael Giacchino got Best Original Score for 'Up', and Ryan Bungham and T Bone Burnett took the Best Original Song award for 'The Weary Kind', used in 'Crazy Heart'.

As usual, there was as much focus on the frocks as there was on the gongs. But I'm not going to comment on those, because I find all that a bit vacuous.

The nominations for the Royal Television Society Awards have been announced, and this year's highest achiever is Miranda Hart's show 'Miranda'. Hart is nominated for Best Comedy Performance, and she and her fellow writers James Cary and Richard Hurst are short-listed for the Best Comedy Writing gong. The show also goes up against 'The Inbetweeners' and 'The Thick Of It' in the Best Scripted comedy category.

Other nominees include Julie Walters, who is nominated for her role in 'A Short Stay In Switzerland', Suranne Jones, who gets a nod for her appearance in 'Unforgiven', and Peter Capaldi, recognised for his role in 'The Thick Of It'. Ant and Dec, meanwhile, are nominated for Best Entertainment Performance, a category in which they'll go up against Harry Hill and Michael McIntyre.

The award ceremony, which will be hosted by Rob Brydon, will take place on 16 March at London's Grosvenor Hotel.