The actor made it through his own nomination but was then ushered to an ambulance – an extraordinary performance from an apparently limitless talent

Awards season is hard for everyone. It’s hard for the people organising the awards, because there are now so many award ceremonies compressed into such a brief window that it’s difficult to stand out. It’s difficult for the people who are nominated for the awards, who either have to show up with a new and interesting acceptance speech every time, or settle into a sustained pattern of repeated failure. It’s hard for journalists, who have to cover the awards. It’s hard for readers, who have to keep reading about them.

But nobody, nobody on Earth, had a worse awards season than Andrew Scott did in 2020. This is the year that he found himself nominated for outstanding actor in a comedy series at the Screen Actors Guild awards, for his role as the priest in Fleabag. It wasn’t bad because he was clearly the underdog, up against household names such as Michael Douglas, Alan Arkin, Bill Hader and Tony Shaloub. No, it was bad because he spent the ceremony passing a kidney stone.