MANY of the nominees for this year's British Academy Television Awards - the TV Baftas - are the real thing.

Playing someone famous, or even infamous, is a good way of ensuring a mention at one of the TV industry's biggest nights of the year.

John Simm's time-travelling policeman Sam Tyler in Life On Mars is the only fictional character among the best actor nominees.

Andy Serkis, alias Gollum in The Lord Of The Rings movies, is nominated for his brief but scary turn as Moors murderer Ian Brady in Longford. Jim Broadbent in the title role, of the peer who befriended Brady and Myra Hindley in prison, is also up for best actor.

Nominees are completed by Michael Sheen, the Welsh actor with something of a reputation for playing real people, including Tony Blair several times. But it's his uncanny turn as camp Carry On star Kenneth Williams that's earned him a nod, this time for the BBC biopic Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa.

Longford also earns Samantha Morton a best actress nod for her portrayal of Myra Hindley, while the normally-comic Victoria Wood competes for the more serious Housewife, 49, based on the wartime experiences of a Lancashire housewife.

Anne-Marie Duff could win for her Queen Elizabeth I in the BBC's The Virgin Queen, which got overshadowed by Helen Mirren's Elizabeth for C4. Ruth Wilson is the final best actress hopeful as Jane Eyre, in the BBC adaptation of the Bronte classic.

The four nominees for single drama reveal more fascination with the truth. Longford and Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa are there again. So is Housewife, 49. Completing the nominees is Michael Winterbottom's slice of modern history, Road To Guantanamo.

Nominations wouldn't be complete with some glaring omissions. John Simm is up for Life On Mars, but there's nothing for co-star Philip Glenister, whose no-nonsense cop Gene Hunt is his equal in acting and impact. Life On Mars could be named best drama series, if it can beat off the challenge from Shameless, Sugar Rush and The Street.

Failing that, there's the Pioneer audience award in which Life On Mars is up against Dragons' Den, Planet Earth, The Royle Family - The Queen Of Sheba and The Vicar Of Dibley Christmas Special.

The list is completed by Celebrity Big Brother, not the recent one that sparked complaints of racism, but the 2006 edition in which MP George Galloway impersonated a cat.

No mention anywhere of Doctor Who, whose revival on BBC1 continues apace with the current series led by David Tennant. Some have also queried Helen Mirren's absence for her farewell performance as Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect: The Final Act. Perhaps voters thought she'd already won too many prizes for playing the current monarch in The Queen.

The Prime Suspect two-parter does feature in the drama serial category, alongside C4's Low Winter Sun, See No Evil: The Moors Murders, and The Virgin Queen.

Much-nominated Paul Merton tries again for best entertainment performance, in competition with Ant and Dec for Saturday Night Takeaway, Stephen Fry for QI and Jonathan Ross for his Friday Night talk show.

Three talent shows vie for the entertainment programme title. Trickster Derren Brown: The Heist is the odd one out among Dancing On Ice, The X Factor and How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?.

My guess is that the comedy performance will go to Stephen Merchant, beating his Extras co-star and co-writer Ricky Gervais as well as Dawn French (The Vicar Of Dibley Christmas Special) and Liz Smith for The Royle Family - The Queen Of Sheba.

The Royle Family figure again for best situation comedy, along with Green Wing, The IT Crowd and Pulling.

The Apprentice - the current series of which is providing some of the best TV at the moment - is among the features nominations. So are The Choir, Dragons' Den and Gordon Ramsay's F Word.

In the best factual series I wouldn't like to choose between Stephen Fry: The Secret Life Of A Manic Depressive, Tribe and Who Do You Think You Are?.

One of the most fiercely-contested categories is what Bafta calls continuing drama and everyone else calls soap. Casualty takes on the three big soaps - Coronation Street, Emmerdale and EastEnders.

The Bafta golden masks will be handed over, under presenter Graham Norton's supervision, on Sunday at the London Palladium in a ceremony being televised on BBC1 from 8pm. Longford is repeated on C4 on Tuesday at 10.05pm.