Mike Leigh receives BAFTA fellowship.

And who would begrudge the veteran auteur this rare and prestigious honour? He deserves enormous credit for the organic and original way his films are made. No script, no story, months of workshopping, rehearsal and improvisation. He has never been beholden to big institutions with only commercial and financial interests. Just one problem: most of his films are dreadful. Gloomy, boring and self-indulgent. Worse, they often caricature and ridicule working-class people. Mike Leigh is always lauded for showing us “real” characters. Yet, like Brenda Blethyn in Secrets & Lies, they’re often quite grotesque cartoons. But because his unusual methods are so renowned, his films receive far more plaudits than they deserve. Just because they were painstakingly made doesn’t necessarily make them any good. Mike Leigh may have been wearing a tuxedo to collect his award last night but metaphorically, was he wearing anything at all?